Midseason miticide musings - part 1

An alliterative title for a speculative post.

What are the three most important things a neophyte beekeeper should be told in the opening session of their winter 'Start beekeeping' course?

The dimensions of a National hive, the best type of hive tool, or the benefits of 'brood and a half'?

Unsurprisingly, none of those.

I'd suggest the following three 'rules':

1. Beekeeping is a local activity, largely influenced by the local forage and climate, not the calendar.
2. If you lose a colony, particularly overwinter, it's almost certainly due to the viruses transmitted by Varroa.
3. Knocking back queen cells is not swarm control 😉.

OK, I'll accept that they might not know what a queen cell or swarm control is yet, or Varroa for that matter. However, emphasising these points early should mean they get the message sooner, and hopefully pay proper attention when these topics are properly discussed.

I'll return to swarm control later in the post, though I'm primarily going to focus on the options, timing, and methods of Varroa management.

And this has everything to do with the first two points above.

Specifically, I'm going to discuss midseason mite management.

What do I mean by 'midseason'?

Can I put a date on that?

I refer you to 'rule 1' above 😉.

In beekeeping terms I'd define it as the time between the spring nectar flow and the main summer flow. Of course, in your locality, your bees might benefit from season-long nectar availability, or you could solely get late season heather, balsam, or ivy nectars.

Midseason is the time when spring expansion is largely over, colonies are very strong, and you might be busy rearing queens, or splitting to make increase. The weather is dependable, which is not the same as good (though it might be). Importantly, it's a time of the year that is largely unaffected by the 'book ending' variables such as an early spring, or late autumn.

It's the middle bit 😄.