Thank you for your interest in caring for honey bee colonies and managing varroa mites. It's critical to control varroa mites to keep colony virus loads low and keep honey bees healthy. each of the approved varroa mite treatments have their own pros/cons and situations when they're best used.

The Honey Bee Health Coalition's Tools for Varroa Management Guide is a terrific resource that presents all of the treatment options.

The Honey Bee Health Coalition's Varroa Management Decision Tool asks the beekeeper a series of questions and presents treatment options. After using the tool to narrow down options, I suggest consulting the Tools for Varroa Management Guide to choose a treatment. It would be good to pay special attention to limitations like temperature, colony size, etc.

Some of the varroa mite treatments kill a small amount of honey bee adult bees and brood, but the overall damage to the colony isn't substantial. The benefits of keeping varroa mite loads (and associated viruses) low normally far outweighs the risks of using treatments. The best way to minimize adverse effects of varroa mite treatments is to read and follow the varroa mite treatment's label, which is the law.

Happy beekeeping!

Here are a few more resources for managing varroa mites:

MSU holds monthly beekeeping webinars during the beekeeping season, where we discuss monitoring and managing varroa mites. We post recordings to The Michigan State University Beekeeping YouTube channel. You can find upcoming webinars on our page of events.

MSU's Keep Bees Alive webpage compiles varroa resources.