Participate in the VarroaVault Resistance Surveillance Network
The national varroa resistance monitoring network currently has data from fewer than 5% of US beekeepers despite widespread resistance development. This gap is critical: we know resistance is developing and spreading, but without beekeeper-reported treatment outcome data, the geographic pattern of resistance is largely invisible at the regional level.
Your treatment failure report might be the data point that alerts other beekeepers in your county to a resistance problem they're about to encounter.
TL;DR
- Treatment decisions should always be triggered by a mite count result, not a fixed calendar date
- Different treatments have different temperature requirements, PHI restrictions, and brood penetration capabilities
- Always run a post-treatment count 2-4 weeks after treatment ends to calculate efficacy
- Efficacy below 80% warrants investigation -- possible resistance, application error, or reinfestation
- Rotate treatment chemistry to prevent resistance buildup across successive cycles
- VarroaVault logs treatment events, calculates efficacy, and flags when rotation is recommended
What the Surveillance Network Tracks
The VarroaVault Resistance Surveillance Network collects two types of data:
Treatment failure reports: When VarroaVault calculates post-treatment efficacy below 80% for any registered treatment, it prompts you to submit the outcome to the surveillance network. Your report includes:
- Treatment product and active ingredient
- Application date and conditions (temperature, brood status)
- Pre-treatment count, post-treatment count, and calculated efficacy
- Your location (county-level, anonymized for the public map)
Routine efficacy data: Even when treatments succeed, contributing efficacy data helps establish regional baseline expectations. A county where Apivar consistently achieves 93% efficacy is different from one where it's dropping toward 85% year over year. Tracking both successes and failures gives the most accurate picture.
Why Your Report Matters
Resistance doesn't develop in a single operation: it develops in a local varroa population. When mites in your county develop tolerance to amitraz, they pass that tolerance to the next generation. Those mites spread through drifting and robbing to neighboring operations. Your neighbors' bees are picking up the same resistant mite population you're dealing with.
A resistance hotspot identified by a single beekeeper's treatment failure report can warn beekeepers within a 5-10 mile radius to test more frequently, avoid the same product class, and look for early efficacy decline before it becomes a treatment failure.
The current limitation of the resistance monitoring system is that it's passive: unless beekeepers report, the data doesn't exist. Professional varroa resistance monitoring surveys are expensive and infrequent. Beekeeper-contributed data fills the gap.
How to Submit a Treatment Failure Report
When VarroaVault flags a resistance alert (efficacy below 80%), a prompt appears offering to submit the data to the surveillance network.
To submit:
- Confirm the treatment was applied correctly (label dose, correct temperature, complete protocol). The network filters out reports where application errors are likely responsible for poor efficacy.
- Review the pre-filled report: treatment product, dates, counts, efficacy calculation, county-level location.
- Add an optional note about application conditions.
- Submit.
The submission is reviewed by the network's data quality process before appearing on the map. Reports that don't meet data quality standards (no pre-treatment baseline, incomplete treatment records, obvious application errors) are excluded from the public map.
Is Your Data Anonymous?
Your personal information, business name, and exact apiary location are never shared. Reports appear on the resistance map at county level only: other users see "1 reported amitraz treatment failure in [County Name], [State]" without any identifying information.
Your VarroaVault account data is not shared with any third party without your consent. The surveillance network submission is opt-in: you receive the resistance alert and a prompt, but submission is your choice.
What the Resistance Map Shows
The resistance map is available to all VarroaVault users in the Reports section. The map shows:
- County-level treatment failure reports by active ingredient
- Report volume per county (more reports = stronger signal)
- Temporal trend (when reports started appearing in each county)
- Product-specific filters (view amitraz reports only, or all products)
You can view the map in the context of your own apiaries: is there reported amitraz resistance in the counties adjacent to your yards? This information should inform your rotation planning, potentially motivating you to phase out amitraz in those locations before resistance affects you directly.
What Happens After You Submit
Your report becomes part of the county-level data. When other beekeepers in your area look at the map and see resistance reports in their county, they're seeing data you contributed. Your treatment failure informs their rotation planning.
The network also aggregates data across counties to identify regional patterns. If multiple beekeepers across a state report amitraz failures in the same season, this becomes a signal that can reach state apiary programs and extension services through the aggregated network data.
See also: Mite resistance management and Varroa treatment resistance prevention.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I report a varroa treatment failure to the surveillance network?
When VarroaVault calculates post-treatment efficacy below 80%, a resistance alert fires with a prompt to submit the outcome to the national surveillance network. Confirm the treatment was applied correctly, review the pre-filled report (product, dates, counts, efficacy, county location), add any optional notes, and submit. Reports are reviewed for data quality before appearing on the resistance map.
Is my data anonymous in the VarroaVault resistance network?
Yes. Personal information, business name, and exact apiary location are never shared. Your report appears on the resistance map at county level only. Other users see the number of reported failures in a county without any identifying information. Submission is opt-in: you receive a prompt after a resistance-flag event, but reporting is your choice.
How does the resistance map benefit my individual operation?
The map shows county-level treatment failure reports by active ingredient, helping you see whether resistance is being reported in counties near your apiaries. This information informs your rotation planning: if amitraz resistance reports are appearing in your county or adjacent counties, rotating away from amitraz before you personally experience treatment failure is preferable to waiting until it affects your own colonies.
How do I know if my varroa treatment is working?
Run a mite count 2-4 weeks after the treatment ends and compare it to your pre-treatment count. The efficacy formula is: ((pre-count - post-count) / pre-count) x 100. A result above 90% indicates effective treatment. Results below 80% should trigger investigation for possible resistance, application error, or reinfestation. Log both counts in VarroaVault to track efficacy trends across treatment cycles.
How often should I check mite levels in my hives?
At minimum, once per month (every 3-4 weeks) during the active season. Increase to every 2 weeks when counts are near threshold or after a treatment to verify it worked. In fall, monitoring frequency matters most because the window to treat before winter bees are raised is narrow. VarroaVault's monitoring reminders can be set to your preferred interval for each apiary.
What records should I keep for varroa management?
Each record should include: date of count or treatment, hive identifier, monitoring method used, number of bees sampled, mites counted, infestation percentage, treatment product name and EPA registration number, dose applied, treatment start and end dates, and PHI end date. State apiarists typically expect this level of detail during inspections. VarroaVault captures all of these fields in a single log entry.
Sources
- American Beekeeping Federation (ABF)
- USDA ARS Bee Research Laboratory
- Honey Bee Health Coalition
- Penn State Extension Apiculture Program
- Project Apis m.
Get Started with VarroaVault
The information in this guide is most useful when you have your own mite count data to apply it to. VarroaVault stores every count, flags threshold crossings automatically, and builds the treatment history you need for state inspections and effective management decisions. Start your free trial at varroavault.com.