Mid-season mite monitoring

This is the first of two posts on Varroa monitoring and management during the beekeeping season.

By 'beekeeping season' I mean the warm bit.

The bit between April and the summer honey harvest in the Northern Hemisphere.

Once the honey supers are removed in late summer it's likely that Varroa treatment will be needed to protect the winter bees, but I've covered that topic ad nauseam, so will omit it from the discussion.

This post is on the options for monitoring mite levels — why you should and how you can — and the next {{1}} — will be on the options for managing (i.e. reducing) undesirably-high mid-season mite levels.

Of course, any mite levels — above zero — are undesirable.

However, let's be realistic, the majority of readers of this site work with bees that are infested with Varroa, and the majority of those beekeepers also need to control mite levels to avoid unacceptably high winter losses.

There will be some readers who either don't manage Varroa, or don't need to.

Those two things are not the same 😉.

The first of these two groups should probably 'get with the program' (i.e. monitor and manage mite levels), and definitely should if they have been losing colonies overwinter.

The second group should also periodically check mite levels to (hopefully) confirm they remain at a level the bees can cope with.

Far better that than be faced with a row of quiet, cold, dead hives in early February.

And if that was your experience this winter, perhaps these posts will help this season.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

The problem with Varroa is twofold. They're damned small, and they spend the majority of their revolting, incestuous lives skulking inside capped brood cells.

Just because you don't see mites during a routine hive inspection does not mean that they're not present.