Bayvarol Elanco varroa (1 hive)

01 · DIAGNOSIS IN 24 HOURS

A clean sheet of paper and a day's wait

The sheet's protocol is simple: you cover the floor with a clean sheet of paper, insert the strips and 24 hours later you check for dead varroa. Separately, the sheet asks for routine monitoring of the mite load through the year, with a sticky board for the natural drop or by counting mites per 100 bees.

02 · HOW MANY STRIPS AND WHERE

The dose changes with colony size

There is no single figure here. A normally developed colony takes 4 strips; in nucs, new colonies and freshly hived swarms, half that: 2; and in large colonies with several brood areas, 4 per area, spread through the central gangways of each one. They hang in the central part of the brood nest, between the combs, so the bees can settle on both faces: fold the tabs along the marked lines and hang them from the top bar. A trick from the sheet itself for large colonies —joining two strips at their lower end lets you put them in and take them out without pulling the brood combs apart.

03 · ROTATION

Alternating Bayvarol with Apistan is not rotating

Flumethrin is a pyrethroid, and its sheet says so without hedging: since flumethrin and tau-fluvalinate belong to the same chemical class, they are not suitable for rotating with each other. Anyone alternating Bayvarol and Apistan thinks they are rotating and has been repeating the same family for years. Useful rotation is with different classes, within an integrated programme with systematic monitoring. If there is known pyrethroid resistance, it is not applied. And one nuance that gives you room: if it was observed years ago, the sheet advises retesting, because susceptibility can return over time.

04 · HONEY, POLLEN AND WAX

The long restriction is not the honey one

On honey, the withdrawal is zero days. But the very same section adds something far more restrictive that almost nobody publishes: the other hive products —pollen, wax, propolis— must not be intended for human consumption until the spring following treatment. If you harvest pollen or sell wax, that deadline governs your calendar. The best efficacy comes in late summer, after the harvest, and ideally you do not use it in full honey flow; even so, the sheet allows it at any time of year for diagnosis or faced with a severe infestation. The strips stay in for a maximum of six weeks.

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

Do not open the bags until the moment you use them, and keep the strips from touching honey intended for human consumption. Wash your hands after handling them, before eating and at the end of the job; do not eat, drink or smoke while you work with them. Treat every colony in the apiary at the same time. Used strips do not go into watercourses: flumethrin is dangerous to fish.

05 · SUPPLY AND PACK

Bayvarol is a prescription-only veterinary medicine. Because of that status it cannot be supplied by distance selling: this page is informational and does not process any purchase. The aluminium bag holds 4 strips, the treatment for one normally developed hive. The marketing authorisation holder is Elanco Animal Health.