Mites - the beginning...

[CpnObvious]

Something I learned from the state bee inspector today.  I talked to him about how I treated my hives with MAQS and mentioned how they've been a bit testy lately... Apparently my treatment coincided with a dearth we are in right now.  Even though I continue to feed them, he attributes their attitude to the dearth.  He says he's noticed bees everywhere acting up the last couple weeks. 

[riverbee]

well yeah capn, that would make sense, nectar/and or pollen dearth and gettin MAQ-ed..........i'd be testy too.............
queen might shut down laying, foragers are restless and housebees too, nothing to do. no food to forage for or food in the house to sustain or raise babies,  except what's left and maybe some artificial stuff or the samo, or maybe bread and butter sandwiches instead of pbj or better stuff, and then someone comes along and gases your house...........

sorry capn, i couldn't help myself but in all seriousness, dearths (pollen/and or nectar) can and will make bees testy, treating them with a chemical on top of the dearth, well........very cranky bees.    dearths affect our colonies in many ways!

[Jen]

Riv - "or maybe bread and butter sandwiches instead of pbj or better stuff, and then someone comes along and gases your house.....

 

[CpnObvious]

or maybe bread and butter sandwiches instead of pbj or better stuff

Problem with that... I don't like or use butter/margerin/etc... HOUSTON!  We have a problem! 

[apisbees]

I will correct you Perry You did have it right

I have never heard of anyone vapourizing formic. The formic fumes themselves do the deed, there is no vaporization that I'm aware of

when you open formic acid it temp of vaporization is low enough so that it vaporizes on its own as Oxalic acid crystals need to be heated to vaporize of be diluted in water and dribbled onto the bees. So both these are used as a vapor for killing the mites as apposed to chemicals that get transferred from bee to bee and the mite comes in contact to kill it, like products as Apistan and Apiguard.
Oxalic acid is a quick treatment that will only kill the mites that are out side of the sealed brood. where Formic is a longer evaporation that can extend the evaporation time over 1 to 3 weeks depending on method of delivery. It is recommended that oxalic be used only after the bees have ceased brood rearing in the fall or before they start brood rearing in the spring. to use it while brood rearing is in progress would require 3 applications at a week apart and in tests that this was done the treatments was detrimental to the health of the queens.

Correction it was a beekeeper that reported this to the bee inspector, and it was determined that he over treated during active brood rearing.

[Jen]

Hey Apis, I would like to know where you read that OAV is detrimental to the queens. I haven't come across that yet, it would be good to know ~

[LazyBkpr]

to use it while brood rearing is in progress would require 3 applications at a week apart and in tests that this was done the treatments was detrimental to the health of the queens.

  Me too. Everything I have read and can find says there is no harmful side effects of OAV..  OA Dribble is a very different story.
   One of the tests treated the bees with OAV for three months every week with no harmful side effects, so if there is evidence to the contrary I would appreciate a link so I can check it out..   Because this is exactly how I have treated...  I don't like to go out and disturb the bees in the cold, so I treat twice, skip a week and treat a third time.   I have never noticed any problems, but would also like to avoid problems!

[Jen]

Speaking of OA dribble regarding the queen, maybe if the solution is dribbled right onto the queen...  but then again would'nt it be that way with any of the other bees that got hit with the dribble. Frankly, I don't know much about this procces either.

[Gypsi]

With another week of 100 degree weather, I don't even want to put my sticky board under my sbb right now.  but if I do have to treat this year it will either be granulated sugar food processed to powdered, or OA.  Read somewhere about an inexpensive aromatherapy vaporizer to treat the hives.  Sounds within my budget.

[apisbees]

At a bee meeting last fall the bee inspector stated that there was some concern of a beekeeper experiencing queen supersedure after oxalic treatment. The Ministry of Agriculture did testing on oxalic in vapor form and they found it caused problems with the survivability of open brood in the hive. I called the inspector and he suspects that some of the supersedure problems from the beekeeper was due to the bees thinking the queens were failing because of frequent over application of oxalic. He was treating weekly during early summer during active brood rearing at a higher than recommended dosage. This is why the Ministry of Agriculture only recommends treating once and when no brood is present in the hive so it is most effective.

There is the paragraph from the web site. http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/apiculture/factsheets/221_varroa.pdf

Oxalic Acid
Oxalic acid (Oxalic acid dehydrate) should only be applied in late fall when the colony has no brood. Any open brood in the colony is likely to be killed by oxalic acid.
Even though the product is not as volatile as formic acid, always wear rubber gloves and safety glasses when handling the product. Avoid inhalation of vapors.
Oxalic acid treatment should be applied only once.
Oxalic acid can be applied at cool temperatures, either through vaporization crystals heated and converted directly into a gas vapor) or trickling an acid-sugar syrup solution onto the bees.
Acid-sugar syrup solution:
Prepare 1 liter of 1:1 sugar solution.
Add 35 g of oxalic acid crystals to the warm solution and stir gently until fully dissolved. The sugar syrup solution will have an acid concentration of 3.5% .
With a syringe or applicator, trickle 5 ml of solution directly onto the bees in each of the occupied bee spaces between frames in each brood box.
The maximum dose is 50 ml of acid solution per colony whether it is a nuc single or multiple brood chambered hive.
Vaporizer method:
Seal all upper hive entrances and cracks, and reduce the main entrance.
Smoke bees up from the bottom board.
Place 2 g of oxalic acid dehydrate into the vaporizer. Insert vaporizer through the bottom entrance.
Follow manufacturer’s instructions for vaporizer use.

[LazyBkpr]

using the dribble method in syrup causes the bees to ingest the syrup, and is proven to shorten their lifespan.. In summer bees this is not an issue as they live approximately six weeks, but in winter bees it could be detrimental to the longevity of the hive..

   Of the arguments against OAV I can only relate my own experiences..
   I have not yet had a Treated hive supersede, and I have not seen any larvae removed from the hive after treatment. None of the first year hives have been treated yet, second year hives are about to be treated starting tomorrow. They were treated last year and this spring as mentioned. Twice a week apart, skip a week and a single treatment again. I do not use more than is recommended, in fact I err on the side of caution and have had very good results, so see no need to "amp up" the treatment dosage, and that warning gives me a good reason not to try it.
   The two hives that were on the edge of crashing I treated in June literally exploded after treatment. One produced three supers of honey, the other two (And are refilling them again) with no apparent affect on queen or brood. Two weeks after treatment both hives had multiple frames of capped brood, and I did not "see" a supersedure in progress at any time. 
   Starting the treatment schedule tomorrow I will pay CLOSE attention and see if I find any of the mentioned signs of problems.

[Jen]

Mkay, my turn    I have treated my hive, which turned into three more hives, four times beginning first week in January. I paid close attention to every time I treated watching for a couple of days. In my experience, nothing changed any of the hives, except that the bees were faster and busier after treatment. I found one large larvae outside after one treatment this summer. To date, I have two purchased queens, and two swarmy queens, all four queens went thru the 2 treatment back to back. I have no evidence that any queen was superceded ~

[CpnObvious]

but if I do have to treat this year it will either be granulated sugar food processed to powdered, or OA.

When I met our state inspector the other day he told us about the different treatments.  One thing he says he's noticed in his 37 years of doing this is that the mites seem to have adapted to the sugar-dusting method.  He says they now latch on to the bee further in and that the sugar doesn't get to them.  Then the other bees clean the sugar off each other, missing the mites as they are further between the abdomen and thorax(?).  He pointed out what he meant on one bee.

Have you more experienced beeks found this to be the case as well?

[Beeboy]

I haven't read the whole thread, but what I do for mites is probably different than what most do & I have no mite problems.

I make the little sugar/crisco patties but I add some mentholatum to it. A cup of sugar, a cup of crisco, & a half bottle of mentholatum. It smells pretty strong but it does the trick for me. I have had severe mites, they were gone within a day of using this little homemade concoction. Just patty it out about the size of a hamburger patty. Put it on a piece of wax paper & sit it on top of the frames of the top box. Done.

It's cheap & it's all available at your local store.

[Jen]

Hi Bee    somewhere in the recesses of my mind (I think that is a title to a song back when) about mentholatum. Curious, how do you know that the mites are gone? do you have a sticky board under a screen bottom board and can see dead mites?

[Beeboy]

No sticky board. The mites that I have the most problems with are trachea mites. You can't see them, but you can see the bees gasping for air as they are suffocating to death. They gasp & wiggle around & fall dead by the handfuls. Once this concoction is applied the dying stops. I forgot to also mention that I use apiguard every fall before the temps cool down. Probably in September.

I have had a small problem with varroa mites, but not bad. These two things are the only things I have ever done in 4-1/2 years of beekeeping. It seems to be working.

[Jen]

Geeez, that must be just awful to watch. Don't have trachea yet, but have to keep a check on varroa.

[Beeboy]

It is terrible to watch. Especially the first time when I had no idea what was happening.

 I watched the whole hive die before I could figure out what was happening. It happened again the next year. Every one was saying to get menthol crystals & that would take care of it. Well I don't keep those sitting around & I could not find them to buy locally. I had to leave town the next day for 3 days & I knew that the whole hive would be dead by the time I got back. So out of desperation I went to the local pharmacy & bought some mentholatum. I put it in the patties that I had been using for the varroa mites & installed it before I left town. When I got back the hive looked as healthy as any hive could ever look. So every nuc or split I make gets one of these patties immediately.

[Jen]

Good to know 

[apisbees]

Beeboy is using 2 different products and 2 different treatments for mites. Crisco menthol patties for the trachea mites, and Apiguard for controlling varroa. each of these treatments only works on the one type of mite. Formic acid treatments as well as oxalic acid works to kill both mites so even though we are treating against varroa that we can see and easily test for. We are also keeping the trachea mites under control.