Oxalic Treatment after dark

[Jen]

Soo yaah I'm not an early riser ~ the hours between 9pm and midnight can be very productive for me. So when I get out to do the oa treatment at 8am I try and smoke the bees back into the entrance. It's not difficult these autumn days cause they're not too busy anyway. But in the summer there are a lot of bees already out foraging. So I was wondering about doing the treatments at night.. say this time of year 9pm? I would have everything ready, have a headlamp on, and move along with each treatment until all 4 hives are done. I would need to be careful to not trip over anything...

What say you 

[Perry]

Nothing like a good headlamp to direct the bees when it's dark.
Please take plenty of pictures, before and after!
 

[iddee]

If the headlamp is red, pictures should be surreal. If it is white light, Jen's head will be too full of stingers for her to take pics.

[Jen]

Yaaaaah I thought of that, I'm giggling. I can see it now... bees all over my head light and face.

But like I said, it would be ready to go...   Put on head lamp, leave garage, go out put acid in cup, insert cup, put negative clamp on battery, go back to garage, wait 2 1/2 minutes. Go out undo negative clamp, go hang out on forum for 10 minutes. Repeat.

I dunno.. I think I could fine tune it 

[Jen]

I'll do it on Halloween night and greet the kids at the door... 

[iddee]

A red lens on the light and the bees won't even know you are there.

[Jen]

Great Tip Mr. Wizard ~ Thanks!

[Yankee11]

You could have your hubby hold the light for ya.

[Jen]

Awe Yankee.. and he would do that too.. but the idea is to do most of this hobby myself so I'm usual devising new methods

[Yankee11]

lol, I used to get my beekeeping buddy to hold the light, but he wont fall for that anymore :-)

[riverbee]

i use a headlamp on low light if need be to MOVE BEES so i am not tripping and falling on my face, which i do quite frequently anyway during daylight hours minus the headlamp.  if i were treating bees at night with oxalic acid with a headlamp on, YOU GIT WHAT YOU DESERVE......   my guess would be quite an adventure.
like perry said take lots of pix before and after....hmm.....IF your camera has a night setting.................
seriously funny adventure i would guess........
hey, us keeps do all sorts of things and it keeps us all humored....and or i'm not doing that....

[LazyBkpr]

The OA Crystals will transfer to the bees that were not IN the hive when they return or when the rag is removed from the entrance..   In testing, a hive was split in half with a follower board. HALF was treated and the board removed.  There was a 65% mite drop on the untreated side..
   I have had some TOUGH experiences when fussing with the hives at night, so try to limit such activities. With 4 hives, a bit of smoke and a red light you could be in and out in less than 15 minutes if the ladies cooperate.  Let us know how it goes!

[Jen]

Thanks for those stats Scott    See, I've been in my hives around dark about a handful of times over the years, and the bees were just fine. I haven't seen or experienced anything unpleasant. That doesn't mean that I'm not cautious tho.

If those stats are true then I won't need to do treatments at night. But, I still might give it a whirl some time.

I do know that when a winter treatment is done it's easy as pie, cause all the bees are huddled upstairs.

What would be nice to see for beeks that use the oa treatments, is a vid or pics that show what actually happens in the hive, from vapor to crystals and how it all works on the bees themselves.

[vossejongk]

Bit late of an answer but when I want to move my hives I always close the entrance when it's dark in the evening, open the bottom screen and depending on temps the top one a little more or less. Then in the morning move the hive or when treating spray a little water or smoke to keep them in. Most amazing sight was when it was 11 am and I moved the hive 5 km  1.5 months ago.  Thousands of bees swarmed out only to find out they're somewhere unknown and start flying in circles to orientate.

[LazyBkpr]

I will try to remember to do a Video when I do an OA treatment to my Observation hive!

[Jen]

Now That would be something to see 

[kebee]

 I try to do mine early in the morning at day break, had something happen this last time that has not been before, first hive went ok on the second hive when I slid the oxalic in it felt like I hit some bur comb, moved it a little and hook it up to battery. When I took the rags off and shoot the bees off and pulled the oxalicdiser out there had to bee 50 are more bees come out with it so I had to move quick and get out of their way. I had lay the tool on a board beside the hive and when I got back to clean it up there were a couple of dead bees in it. I was just wonder if there were a group I bees that I push the oxalic tool into instead of bur comb that I though it was.

Ken

[Jen]

That could be Kebee... sometimes i have had to slowly push a little bit to get the cup into the middle-ish of the hive. Often times I get a couple of fried bees. But the real problem came up this summer when we were doing treatments, and that was the fact that I still had some black plastic frames in the brood deep. The heat of the oa cup melted a bit of the plastic into the cup. So we had to do some serious scraping to clean up the cup. Since then I have been able to trade out some of the plastic 'frankenframes' with wooden frames or to move them to the walls of the hive.