Lessons Learned From Our First Round Of Varroa Mite Treatments:
1- Start treatment when the day light is increasing, not decreasing. (It might be easier to treat the bees if you can see them!! Don’t start your treatment regimen at sundown like us idiots!)
2-Suit up well! (Spraying your bees with sucrocide, though it will kill the varroa mites, will also piss off your bees. Next time we will wear full beekeeping garb instead of just our veils. Then maybe we won’t both be freaking out and going “Hey! Can you brush this bee off of me??? Fast!!! Please?? Honey?? Please!!”
3-If you just dropped a frame of bees on the ground and knocked some of the bees off, don’t step in that same spot. The bees will crawl up your pant leg and seek revenge.
4-Don’t wear gloves that are wide open around the wrist. Bees like to see what is in that glove!

All in all we came out of it with only one sting, amazingly! Since we are currently using Sucrocide for treatment, we will have to repeat the process of spraying every bee 2 more times. But next time, well will do it in the morning.

We actually put white sticky boards under the hives last night so that when the mites fell off we cound count them. Toby’s hive had 1 mite in 24 hours. So, we didn’t even treat his. Mine had a count of 53 in 24 hours. The threshold for treatment in 10-15 in 24 hours. SO, my hive is really pretty sick. I hope this treatment helps. They looked pretty bedraggled and sticky when we were done. Hopefully they will pull through it ok.