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 Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, is sprayed with a three percent oxalic acid solution about two days after the split. The brood colony, on the other hand, takes longer: only when all the original brood has emerged after about twenty-one days is it broodless as well and can be treated, if necessary with a second treatment five to seven days later if the mite infestation requires it.
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 queen is kept in the colony throughout, which reduces the risk of failed queen rearing in the brood colony.
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.