How to Use Apivar Strips & What to Do with the Honey | How to Deal with Varroa Mites

in this video i'm going to put some apovar strips into the beehive to get rid of the mite infestation and this is a synthetic chemical whereas most of my treatments are actually organic this is uses amaterase which is a synthetic chemical now what you want to do before you even put the white treatment in is remove the honey supers that's something that i did earlier today so you're going to have either just one deep brood box or maybe two brood boxes in this case this hive has two brood boxes you want your chemical resistant gloves you want your apovar strips now on the packaging it does not say you have to wear a mask however it does have some directions if inhaled move person to fresh air so wear a mask if you want to if that makes you feel more comfortable however the directions do not specify that you need to wear a mask it does not have a strong smell the way formic acid does um it's not an absolute requirement the way oxalic acid is but you know especially if you're nursing or pregnant i would highly recommend wearing a mask it's also good to have a pair of scissors with you but um in theory you don't need scissors so we already took our honey supers off and i already went through the beehive when i was harvesting honey and put markings on the frames the markings on the frames show me where the brood is so that i don't have to guess at where to put these strips i already know i actually wear latex gloves first and then put these chemical resistant gloves on top and that's just an extra measure that i take because i've used these gloves for other things and just opening them up sometimes freaks me out so we're going to open up the beehive and put the strips in you want to put one strip in if you have one to five frames of brood you put two strips in if you have six to ten frames of brood three strips for 11 to 15 frames of brood and you do not want to put more than two strips per box now in my brood box i have marked that i have one two three four five six seven frames of brood so i'm going to put two strips in this box you don't want to put the strips on two frames next to each other you want there to be at least one frame in between these two frames the strips have a little triangle piece and you are going to use that to wedge them between the frames so now since i have two brood boxes i'm going to take this box off and do the same for the lower box this box has four frames of brew so i'm only going to put one strip in so let's look at it from the beekeepers perspective i already labeled all of my frames in my hive with the letter p which means there was poison in the hive when this frame was in this is not just for sake of knowing not to harvest this honey but also the comb i have a dot where i have brood on these frames so i have one two three four five six seven frames of brood i need two apo bar strips so i'm going to put them in the middle of the cluster a couple of frames apart and since this is a super the strips go in at a little bit of an angle because this box isn't as deep when you put these in you want to bend this little flag and wedge it in between the strip and the frame but if it seems like the strip is touching the side of the frame the comb inside you can use a toothpick you're right in this strip is a hole you can put a nail or a toothpick in there and hang the strip however i found that bending this little piece man does anyone ever else have trouble finding gloves to fit people with small hands i found that just bending the piece does a good job of keeping that strip wedged in the middle of the gap and that's it once you've put the apovar strips in you want to leave them in for six weeks if after four weeks you check on your hive and you notice that the brood cluster is moved and there aren't many bees around your strips anymore then move the strips to where the bees are now and leave your strips in for two more weeks so now even some locations already the april bar strips aren't incredibly effective and that's because they have been overused and left in the hive for too long by other beekeepers and a varroa mite resistant to this chemical has already developed in your area if that is not the case then amateurs is incredibly effective and really zeros out your mic counts once you've taken your apovar strips out you leave your bee hive alone for two weeks before you put honey supers back on so the apovar strips are something that you can use in the spring before your bees start gathering honey typically good two months before your bees are bringing in honey so that you have time to leave the strips in and leave the hive alone before honey season starts and you need to add supers or you can do it in the fall once you've already harvested your honey the ideal time to do it is in the springtime in the early spring time because you don't want to put it on when you have honey supers on even if those honey supers are supers full of honey you're not going to be eating their supers for the winter do you see this view that's like right you can check your hive over the course of these four to six weeks while the april bar strips are in but really keep it to a minimum um check out maybe every other week if necessary and and do a very quick inspection be very careful around these strips make sure you're wearing your chemical resistant gloves and try to just avoid these frames with the strips on them and most importantly after you've done all this make sure you wash your tools you wash your hands with soap really well and you do not touch these strips or anything that these strips are on with your bare skin how these strips work is the bees walk by them they get the chemical on them and they distribute this chemical around the hive this chemical kills the mites but it does not kill the bees so this is not going to cause an immediate drop in mites uh within your hive it's something that slowly happens over the course of the next four to six weeks the benefits of using april bar strips are they're incredibly easy to put in you put them in once and that's it you never have to put in another round of them you don't need any kind of equipment it's very simple they're pretty cheap to buy and it's very effective in most locations the cons to using the strip is that it is a synthetic chemical it's one of the harshest chemicals that you can actually put into the beehive it is toxic if you touch it with your bare skin and so you cannot harvest the honey from uh the hive that was in the hive when you use these strips and you do not want to use this beeswax for any kind of cosmetic use or any kind of consumption and of course read the label very carefully before you administer these strips and make sure you have all of your protective gear with you and on and before you open anything up and to make sure that you are using the treatments properly and that it's actually working the best thing to do is to do a mic test before you put your strips in and then do a test two weeks after you take your strips out this will tell you how effective the strips are if your mic count is 12 you put the strips in and then it's one or two great if it's like four or five after you take the strips out either you did something wrong or you have um varroa mites in your hives that are resistant to the amitrax chemical used in these strips so i know that my tests aren't fun to do but they only take a few minutes and it will really be the best for the overall health of your bees and really make beekeeping easier because there's no point in using a treatment if it's not going to work and it's really just a waste of your time and money if you have questions about this leave them in the comments if you live in an area where this these strips don't work i'd love to hear from you because i keep reading that there are areas where the apovar strips don't work but here where we are in kona they work really well and i've never actually met a beekeeper who lives in an area where these strips don't work very well and um if you want to be notified about our other videos we release a new video every single week so hit the subscribe button and then there's a little bell icon and you hit that then you'll get an email when we have a new video out thanks for watching bye

Channel: Beekeeping Made Simple

Views: 15,963

Keywords: apivar, varroa mite, pest management, varroa destructor, beekeeping, beekeeping how-to, beekeeping class, how to keep bees, honey bee, honeybee, beekeeper, female beekeeper, female farmer, beekeeping in tropical weather, beekeeping in tropical climates, online beekeeping class, treating for mites

Id: IGJ5EsJzSbA

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020