bees with disfigured wings

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Boxwood

New Bee
Joined
Oct 5, 2009
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
Dulwich, South London, UK
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
2
Can anyone help me? I have started keeping bees this year and last week when I put the second apistan in the hive there were quite a few bees crawling around with shrivelled up wings. What does this mean? I fed them sugar syrup about 3/4 weeks ago and noticed some bacterial mould type growth in the residue when I removed the container... any ideas please let me know. Thanks.
 
As I understand it then, best to cull the existing brood and treat with oxalic acid straightaway? Anything else I should do other than cross my fingers and hope for the best?
 
apistan

Hi and wecome Boxwood

I'm a newwbee as well been reading a lot I am sure that I've read that apistan is not as evective as it was and it's use dicoraged in favour of other treatmemts
would one of the more exerienced beeks advice.

ta
Mik
 
apistan

All to do with mutation and resistance to the 'icide'. Use of other methods of attack are therefore recommended.

Regards, RAB
 
Can someone tell me the best way to apply oxalic acid? I heard it can be 'squirted' between the frames with a syringe. Is it possible to lift the frames up and spray it onto the bees with a mister spray? Would this be more accurate? All thoughts on this welcomed. Thanks.
 
No, Oxalic is trickled between the frames that are in place in the brood box. I use a syringe. About 1 teaspoon (5mls) per seam- and the solution can be bought already prepared- or if making up yourself - be VERY accurate in measurement
 
Hi Boxwood,
Sorry to hear that you may have a problem. You have read the DWV thread I started but before you take drastic action could you clarify one point - You say there were "quite a few" bees crawling about, the colony I had had hundreds all round the hive out to about 5 feet. My point is that if you have a mild case brood culling is overkill. Getting rid of the varroa mites with Apiguard or trickle oxalic acid together with a good feed should pull them through. Also in their weakened state they are at risk from robbing so a one bee space entrance is a good idea.
Regards Mike
 
Hi Boxwood,
Don't cull the brood but get some Apiguard in quick. The warm weather makes it the most effective treatment at the moment. Culling brood could cause as much harm as good because you need those new bees to overwinter the colony.
Interestingly BBKA news arrived today. Page 19 shows winter loss stats alongside varroa treatments used. It looks to me like there is a strong correlation between winter losses and colonies NOT treated with Apiguard.
Chris
 
Interestingly BBKA news arrived today. Page 19 shows winter loss stats alongside varroa treatments used. It looks to me like there is a strong correlation between winter losses and colonies NOT treated with Apiguard.
Chris

Must be a different BBKA news you've got as I can see the overall losses, and the % of beeks using a particular treatment, but nothing showing the losses associated with the use or not of a particular treatment
 
Overall colony loss 2007-8 30.5%, 2008-9 19.2%
Varroa treatments Apiguard/Thymol (Autumn) 2007-8 41.1%, 2008-9 60.9%. Is that not an inferred correlation?

Similarly there is a suggested correlation between OA or icing sugar and winter losses, but the figures are there to provide the inference.

I read the article on page 6 "How pure is the wax in your Hive?", I was impressed, it must be true, because I read it somewhere else just recently. Hang on, it must have been on page 5!
I think the Editor must be trying to solicit articles to fill up the magazine. :)
 
there were quite a few bees crawling around with shrivelled up wings. What does this mean?.


There are much varroa and its following virus. How much, who knows?

Varroa concentrates to last brood in autumn and so they violate them badly.
 
Thanks everyone, this is all very helpful. There are not hundreds of bees but a few around the hive so it sounds like my best option is to leave them as they are and not cull the brood. I am on the second apiguard treatment (1 per two weeks) and I put a mesh floor in last week with a sliding plastic to catch the mites. I did coat them with icing sugar once in the summer but maybe should have repeated this after two weeks as well - will try that next year.

Does anyone use grease patties and if so have you found them effective and how do you make them? (All the books I read where these patties are used are American).

Also when I slide out the plastic from under the mesh floor to check the number of mites what is the scientific way to do this? How regularly should I check (e.g. after one week) and how many mites is acceptable (do I measure them per square inch)?

All help much appreciated. Thanks
 
Overall colony loss 2007-8 30.5%, 2008-9 19.2%
Varroa treatments Apiguard/Thymol (Autumn) 2007-8 41.1%, 2008-9 60.9%. Is that not an inferred correlation?

The use of Apiguard by those reporting back to the BBKA from a 'random selection of members in England' has increased, and yes, the number of colonies being lost in those reporting back has decreased, but the reason could be anything, it's not a strong correlation, and the use of a particular treatment could quite possibly be totally irrelevant (see below)

For instance one of treatments on that list still has quite high usage levels but is widely acknowledged as having very reduced efficacy due to mite resistance, whilst another treatment on that list has, at least in the UK, very high efficacy but as yet very little reported usage.

Other factors not even reported could be significant, for instance the weather,local crops, pesticide use, foul brood from hive migration, genetic variations in the bees and a whole host of other things. As they say in the article 'in the coming weeks we will be analysing the data further to see if their is a relationship between colony survival numbers and the varroa treatments used' Personally I doubt there is enough data to enable any statistically sound and significant conclusions to be drawn.

How about the situation where a beekeeper lost all 20 colonies over winter 2007/8 and ended up with 5 from swarms going into winter 2008/9 and now again has 20 colonies? Is that zero losses, 75% losses, 300% gain?

Or the situation where another beekeeper went into autumn last year with two colonies, they both died in spring with Nosema, they bought one colony, collected a few swarms and now has 10 colonies? 100% losses or 900% gain?

In both cases the colonies were run by different beekeepers in the same geographical region around 10 miles apart - the varroa treatment regime was more or less identical.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.
 
Is inferred correlation not the same as assumed correlation?

My mother always taught to "never assume".
 
To assume makes an ass out of you and me.
 
I am laughing aloud here,I love the humour of our members :laughing-smiley-014
 

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