Divide and Treat
Lexikon
Split and treat, often abbreviated TuB in German, is a biotechnical concept for Varroa control recommended by bee institutes that combines late-summer colony care with a particularly effective treatment.
Split and treat, often abbreviated TuB in German, is a biotechnical concept for Varroa control recommended by bee institutes that combines late-summer colony care with a particularly effective treatment. A colony is divided box by box into two parts: a so-called flyer colony, which receives the queen of the original colony, once she has been found, and a box with foundation or empty combs, and a brood colony, which gets all the brood boxes and raises an emergency queen from them itself.
The flyer colony is broodless immediately after the division and, according to the instructions of the Bavarian Institute for Bee Research, is treated with oxalic acid by spraying before the first new brood is capped. The brood colony, on the other hand, takes longer: only when all the original brood has emerged after about three weeks is it broodless as well and is likewise sprayed with oxalic acid; with high varroa pressure, it is to be treated with formic acid in a long-term evaporator right after its formation, according to the same instructions.
The great advantage of split and treat is that both measures can be combined with the late-summer care that is due anyway: anyone who sorts out old, dark combs in the same operation practices comb hygiene and Varroa control at the same time. In addition, as with total brood removal, the old queen is retained: she continues to lead the flyer colony while the brood colony raises itself a new queen, so that requeening is also easy if needed.
In practice the method is sometimes confused with total brood removal, in which all the brood is moved into a separate combined brood split while the queen remains in the original colony. A common mistake with split and treat is forgetting to check the brood colony for actual broodlessness before treatment, because only a truly broodless colony can be reliably freed of mites with acids.