Delayed winter treatment ?

[BrianO]

Ahhh ... sometimes I even find myself funny !!

You gotta laugh... Think it's the withdrawal symptoms ... no hives to inspect !

Grumpy Beeks !

 

[Thymallus]

Landrover Sport ran outa Gas !!! )

To continue the pre-festive pedantry ...shouldn't that be diesel/petrol? Or have you had a conversion?

 

[Finman]

Does make for good reading on a Friday night after a good Tescos Finest Pizza and an Erdinger !

When Beekeepers go to War !!!

( NB. Hivemaker no Fortnum and Masons Pizza here, couldn't get there as my Landrover Sport ran outa Gas !!! )

Lightly smoked raw fat salmon on rye sandwich, and green onion stems.


.

 

[Hivemaker.]

( NB. Hivemaker no Fortnum and Masons Pizza here, couldn't get there as my Landrover Sport ran outa Gas !!! )

Hang on there, Brian, I'll come and pick you up with the Fiat Panda, and take you down the chip shop, let you get a feel for the cheap crap.

 

[midnight sun]

I can't speak for anybody else but whenever I have vaped the hives there is a "muted roar", if you like; the sound of all the bees fanning their wings. This has subsided by the time the Varrox comes out. Disturbing, yes but only to a degree. I leave the boxes closed up for six minutes and after that time the odd bee pokes its head out to see what's going on but I have never seen a mass choking exodus.

The fanning of the wings tends to help distribute the oxalic cloud to all parts of the hive, having watched it happen through clear crown boards while 'vaping'.
Just my two penne'th.

 

[BrianO]

Hang on there, Brian, I'll come and pick you up with the Fiat Panda, and take you down the chip shop, let you get a feel for the cheap crap.

You're on !

Drop me of at Tescos Offi to pick up a litre of Linden Village to wash it all down

 

[Pete D]

Thanks.............I think for all the advice ref my original question.

The hives were all treated with apiguard at the end of August.
The demo and kit distribution day has been postponed to Jan 9th.
The situation including monitoring drop will be reviewed prior to the day.

Thanks again.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

To continue the pre-festive pedantry ...shouldn't that be diesel/petrol?

Why not recycledchip fat in this touchy feely save the planet days?

Or have you had a conversion?

I think that his sexuality or gender preferences are his own business and shouldn't be aired on this forum - isn't that right Briony?

 

[pargyle]

I can't speak for anybody else but whenever I have vaped the hives there is a "muted roar", if you like; the sound of all the bees fanning their wings. This has subsided by the time the Varrox comes out. Disturbing, yes but only to a degree. I leave the boxes closed up for six minutes and after that time the odd bee pokes its head out to see what's going on but I have never seen a mass choking exodus.

Exactly ... I think once the vapour goes in the bees actually do fan their wings because it's almost the same sound as you hear in a summer night when there is a real flow on - perhaps a bit more intensive .. just starts the second the OA starts to gas and stops within a couple of minutes. It must stir them up a little but, by the time you open them up, I suspect that the crystals have formed and they are probably wondering about how they are going to clean it up. All you see through the clear crown boards is something that looks a bit like talcum powder. I've never seen more than a handful of bees come out after treatment.

As I understand it the acidity of the OA is about 70 times more toxic to the mites than it is to the bees .. there is commonality insomuch as whether it is dribbled or sublimated it is further spread through the hive by the bees. There is doubt as to whether it gets ingested directly by the mites or whether it is the spikey crystals that penetrate the mites bodies. Some research has shown that killed mites have traces of OA in their bodies .. so it gets in to them somehow. Oddly, trickling is only effective when the OA is dissolved in sugar syrup - it does not work when it is dissolved in water. So ..do the bees take in the sugar syrup and then are the mites ingesting it when they are feeding on the bees ? Do the bees ingest sublimated OA and then pass it on to the phoretic mites ?

There are a lot of questions about the treatment but it's such a cost effective (cheap) treatment that I doubt there is the chance of any of the usual research sponsors spreading some money about to find out exactly what it is that does the damage.

If there is a silver bullet for varroa that's pretty near fool proof, appears to be completely harmless to the bees and is almost totally effective ~ then this is the nearest we have got so far. There's enough anecdotal, circumstantial and observational evidence about for me not to worry about the science behind it but I know there's a few out there that are not happy until they have a peer reviewed paper with empirical, validated results...

I don't know how many people have to say all this before some people start and listen and sublimation gets the FERA seal of approval.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

Hang on there, Brian, I'll come and pick you up with the Fiat Panda, and take you down the chip shop, let you get a feel for the cheap crap.

Fish is quite expensive these days.

 

[BrianO]

Why not recycledchip fat in this touchy feely save the planet days?



I think that his sexuality or gender preferences are his own business and shouldn't be aired on this forum - isn't that right Briony?

You're a funny bunch !

The closest I get to " cross dressing " is putting my leg into the arm of my bee suit and falling over !!

 

[BrianO]

Fish is quite expensive these days.

Depends on the amount of Michelin Stars the establishment has...

Our local Chippie sells Rubber Battered ( literally !) Mullett masquerading as Cod !!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Fish is quite expensive these days.

Well, it could be, but there are three price ranges and qualities of fish...Fortnum and Masons fish and ........... i had better not go any further, we have already been here with the honey and cars.

 

[BrianO]

Exactly ... I think once the vapour goes in the bees actually do fan their wings because it's almost the same sound as you hear in a summer night when there is a real flow on - perhaps a bit more intensive .. just starts the second the OA starts to gas and stops within a couple of minutes. It must stir them up a little but, by the time you open them up, I suspect that the crystals have formed and they are probably wondering about how they are going to clean it up. All you see through the clear crown boards is something that looks a bit like talcum powder. I've never seen more than a handful of bees come out after treatment.

As I understand it the acidity of the OA is about 70 times more toxic to the mites than it is to the bees .. there is commonality insomuch as whether it is dribbled or sublimated it is further spread through the hive by the bees. There is doubt as to whether it gets ingested directly by the mites or whether it is the spikey crystals that penetrate the mites bodies. Some research has shown that killed mites have traces of OA in their bodies .. so it gets in to them somehow. Oddly, trickling is only effective when the OA is dissolved in sugar syrup - it does not work when it is dissolved in water. So ..do the bees take in the sugar syrup and then are the mites ingesting it when they are feeding on the bees ? Do the bees ingest sublimated OA and then pass it on to the phoretic mites ?

There are a lot of questions about the treatment but it's such a cost effective (cheap) treatment that I doubt there is the chance of any of the usual research sponsors spreading some money about to find out exactly what it is that does the damage.

If there is a silver bullet for varroa that's pretty near fool proof, appears to be completely harmless to the bees and is almost totally effective ~ then this is the nearest we have got so far. There's enough anecdotal, circumstantial and observational evidence about for me not to worry about the science behind it but I know there's a few out there that are not happy until they have a peer reviewed paper with empirical, validated results...

I don't know how many people have to say all this before some people start and listen and sublimation gets the FERA seal of approval.

Sounds really promising, having dribbled ( not myself ! ) last January and having found that resulted in a significant knock down , plan to Vape based on monitoring mite drop from now on ....

Only nagging doubt is how the hell will our Bees learn to deal with these ****** mites , through natural evolution, if we continuously keep treating them ?

 

[BeeJayBee]

Only nagging doubt is how the hell will our Bees learn to deal with these ****** mites , through natural evolution, if we continuously keep treating them ?

Good question!

The mites also need to evolve to live with our bees rather than killing off their new hosts, and their generations are shorter than those of honey bees.

 

[Finman]

.

Originally Posted by pargyle
..

- when the OA is dissolved in sugar syrup - it does not work when it is dissolved in water.

There is one treament with oxalic acid: to spray 3% oxalic acid on each side of comb, which is covered with bees. That was common before time when syrup trickling was not used.

Package bees are treated often with oxalic water in USA.

There are a lot of questions about the treatment but it's such a cost effective (cheap) treatment that I doubt there is the chance of any of the usual research sponsors spreading some money about to find out exactly what it is that does the damage.

All those questions have been answered with researches 15 years ago. But hard job to dig them from internet.

There's enough anecdotal, circumstantial and observational evidence about for me not to worry about the science behind it but I know there's a few out there that are not happy until they have a peer reviewed paper with empirical, validated results...

I am one of those who want validated results. Even if I give a link from well known research, it takes only 2.0 hours, when hobby beekeeper has twisted the results to the form of his own anecdote. Propably he did not read at all the research. Very few do that in this forum.

It is hard work to dig out answers from internet. ...And what do other guys. They start to mock and make jokes about that. That is a real face of famous "British Intellectual Poking".
In Australia they have special term to that "Poppy Cutting".

I don't know how many people have to say all this before some people start and listen and sublimation gets the FERA seal of approval.

Sublimation is only one of three famous methods to use Oxalic acid . They are all carefully tested with researched 15 years ago.

European Union Varroa Group make a huge work in years 1998-2006. Read them and believe less.

Read it and deliver less rumours and humbug.

http://www.agroscope.admin.ch/imkerei/00316/00329/04435/index.html?lang=en

.
.
.

 

[Thymallus]

Only nagging doubt is how the hell will our Bees learn to deal with these ****** mites , through natural evolution, if we continuously keep treating them ?

If we keep treating them they probably won't. But then should we stop treating our other "pets" agricualtural animals etc for fleas/worms/other parasites etc for the same reasons? I'm surprised we think differently about our bees.
Interestingly there has been some work done on varroa tolerant feral bees found in France and honey yields. Link here. They found that when they treated some of them to remove the varroa load they collected nearly twice as much honey, suggesting that living with varroa is very costly honey collection wise for the bees.

 

[Finman]

.
No varroa treatment
No extraction
No honey selling (too high price)
No swarm control
Looking hive entrance from internet

Put back yard hive site into digital register, that you know where it those two hives.

These are future visions of hobby beekeeping. Time is too expencive to open the hive.

 

[Finman]

They found that when they treated some of them to remove the varroa load they collected nearly twice as much honey, suggesting that living with varroa is very costly honey collection wise for the bees.

IT is same with all domestic animals and plantings. Works, bacteria, small creatures, rats, mice... Agriculture does not succeed if you allow weeds and sickness take over your business.


.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Only nagging doubt is how the hell will our Bees learn to deal with these ****** mites , through natural evolution, if we continuously keep treating them ?

Only treat when they need treating, breed from those that need less treatments. Have tried queens from other places, but not found any that can survive completely treatment free here yet.