There’s not much to do in the apiary in December. Heft your hives, add fondant if necessary and get on with sorting your shed and cleaning and sterilising everything. If you can’t scorch it, boil it in washing soda solution or soak it in bleach solution. If you can’t do these clean and then wipe with isopropyl alcohol. It’s a good time of year to dismantle your smoker and soak the body in washing soda in hot water and clean the bellows. See the link below for more advice on cleaning and sterilising (1).
Please check your entry on Bee Base before 31 December. You are unlikely to have the same number of colonies and at the same locations as last year and it’s a condition of SBKA membership to register your hives. This also ensures that you are kept informed if notifiable diseases are found near by.
We treat for varroa around mid December with vaporised oxalic acid, as this is when we find that our hives have the least biscuit coloured uncapping on the varroa board, and so the least brood. The good news is that a new VMD approved product, Varroxal, is now available that doesn’t contain sugar that can otherwise block the nozzle on vaporisers. We suggest that beginners trickle an approved product such as Apibioxal around this time to treat for varroa.
Varroa should never really have been called ‘phoretic’. They don’t just ride around on adult bees, they parasitise them as well as larvae and feed on their fat bodies (2). In winter when the colony is broodless all these varroa are feeding on and directly damaging winter bees, spreading viruses, and reducing their lifespan, immunity and ability to feed spring larvae. Fortunately ‘phoretic’ mites are easily killed when the colony is broodless with oxalic acid treatments. Oxalic acid is a natural ingredient in many foods, including honey and has been shown to be well tolerated by adult bees at the appropriate dose (3).
By law, you can only trickle or gas vape a Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) approved product such as Apibioxal or Varroxal. It has become increasingly difficult under new 2023 regulations to buy oxalic dihydrate in any concentrated form other than an approved VMD medicine (4,5).
Please do not treat for varroa with anything other than VMD approved products. We have spoken to beekeepers who have managed to buy cheap non-approved products on Amazon, some who have products from other countries and those who mistakenly believe that rhubarb leaves help. The consequences of unapproved treatment can be anything from harming your bees and colony collapse to contaminated honey and can ultimately result in prosecution.
If you are an experienced beekeeper, willing to consider queen rearing, with access to more than around 5 colonies you might be interested in joining our new varroa resistance group to support the breeding of varroa resistant bees. Please do not just stop or skip treatments as the collapse of your colonies could endanger our breeding programme by spreading pests and diseases, through robbing.
References
2. https://youtu.be/z2plL5NIRcw?feature=shared
4. https://theapiarist.org/oxalic-acid-api-bioxal-preparation/
5. https://www.nationalbeeunit.com/diseases-and-pests/varroa/medicines
Last update: 25 November 2025