by Véto-pharma After years of development, testing, industrialization, and registration, the Véto-pharma team is proud to introduce Apivar® 2.0, the new generation of amitraz-based strips, to help USA beekeepers protect their beehives against pesky varroa mites.
On January 10, 2025, the EPA officially granted federal authorization for Apivar 2.0, a new amitraz-based slow-release treatment.
State registration will follow according to the usual calendar. We will keep you posted every time a new state approves Apivar 2.0.
Apivar® 2.0, as its name indicates, is the new generation of Apivar®, a well-known varroa mite treatment that has helped millions of beekeepers across the globe since 1995. As beekeeping evolves, our dear beekeepers expect improvements to ease their lives and enhance treatment efficiency. Our R&D team has developed this new generation of Apivar to meet these expectations.
So, without further ado, here are the improvements you will get from Apivar 2.0.
This was probably the most anticipated improvement. Apivar has always been a great weapon against varroa mites. However, when infestations were too high, the treatment could be slow to reduce mite levels. Apivar 2.0 will help you lower mite infestations much quicker than the original Apivar by delivering a significant mite drop during the first weeks of treatment.
In our comprehensive field efficacy study (conducted in our R&D apiary in France), we achieved a minimum efficacy rate of 60% within the first 3 weeks.1 In some cases, we observed this rate even sooner. This rapid reduction in varroa mite populations helps to relieve stress on honey bee colonies more quickly.
We extensively tested Apivar 2.0 for a treatment duration of 6 to 10 weeks. This extended duration acts like a shield, protecting your hives from neighboring reinfestations at the end of the season. You can now leave the strips for up to 10 weeks, especially there is brood in your colonies.
Remember that strips must be removed at the end of your treatment to prevent the development of resistance. Help us help you: let’s preserve the efficacy of amitraz by planning the removal of the strips in your season calendar.
This is a major step compared to the original Apivar: you no longer have to wait before placing your honey supers on the hive once you remove the Apivar 2.0 strips. That’s a two-week difference that can change your mite treatment strategy, especially if you need to treat your colonies in spring, right before the first honeyflows.
Toothpick, nail, wire… you have all been super creative in improving the hanging system of Apivar. And we thank you for playing the game for all these years. It’s true that the triangle was not well adapted to easily hanging the strips, and you probably hated us when strips fell to the bottom of your brood boxes.
Well, that’s now a thing of the past: Apivar 2.0 comes with a built-in system to easily hang the strips. You will never swear again about the Apivar hanging system.
This feature may not excite you much if you use Langstroth hives, as the original Apivar strips were already the right size for you. But let’s think for a second about the Dadant or Layens hive users (mostly in Europe) with taller frames.
They had to be even more creative, hanging the strips with a wire to lower them in the middle of the frames. So when designing Apivar 2.0, our question was: How can we create a strip that will be adjusted both for the small Langstroth frames and the big Layens ones? And tadaaa, we created the adjustable strip that you can bend on the top of the Langstroth frames or leave at full size for Dadant and Layens hives.
Apivar 2.0 and Apivar are two distinct products, each registered as distinctive mite treatments with the EPA. Both products will coexist in the USA market, at least for a while, as states have varying timelines to approve new treatments. For example, in California, it can take a couple of years for a new product to be registered.
In the long run, we expect Apivar 2.0 to completely replace the original Apivar, as the benefits of this new product will outperform the original version.
Well, it depends on state approvals. Some states take a few days, others count in months, and a few states count in years. Now that the EPA has approved Apivar 2.0, we can finalize the product label, prepare for mass production and then ship to the USA. Realistically, this means availability in-store in spring.
Apivar 2.0 will be available to US beekeepers at their favorite beekeeping shops! The list of sellers will be updated in real-time on this link.
Apivar 2.0 will come in a range of pack sizes (4, 12, and 60 strips) making it a flexible option for both individual and commercial beekeeping needs.
Yes, we are in the process of registering Apivar 2.0 in other countries. But no, we cannot give you the names yet, sorry! Rest assured; our regulatory team is working hard on it.
We’d like to ask for your help to build our Apivar 2.0 Frequently Asked Questions. Please drop us a note on this form, so we can make the answers to your questions available to everyone.
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All the Véto-pharma team is delighted to share this news with you today. It’s the culmination of years of work for all of us. We truly hope that you will enjoy Apivar 2.0.
Visit the Apivar 2.0 page on our Véto-pharma website!
APP-02-US-N01-01/25
1- Internal study reference VTP23-007 – Comparison of efficacy against Varroa destructor and honey bee tolerance to different amitraz treatments in Dadant-shaped hives – 2023
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