Feeding and apiguard treatment.

[kronkie]

After reading the "message from the national bee inspector" I made a very consious examination of the levels of stores in my brood boxes and to my horror they are nealy depleted and the girls are feeding from the above suppers.
However I want to do the apiguard treatment so how can I feed, to keep the girls alive, and and do the treatment?
The supers have probally 4 or 5 frames of honey that is not capped so would putting them above the crown board, thus hoping that the girls take it down to the brood box in the next couple of days give them enough stores for the month long treatment?

 

[Erichalfbee]

You can feed and treat at the same time. One of my colonies is being managed this way. You will have to take the super off or it will be tainted with thymol and you won't be able to use it for your own honey. Can you put the frames in the freezer for a month then give it back to the bees after treatment?
My lot won't move stores down to the brood box from above at the moment but will if put under.

 

[kronkie]

Cheers ericA, sounds good to me as I can put the super frames in the freezer, but how do you go about the feeding and the treatment?

 

[busybee53]

It's easy to feed and treat because you can put the Apiguard on top of the brood box, direct on the frames using an apiguard rim (or eke) and then put the large hive top feeder with strong syrup on above the eke.

 

[kronkie]

Simple when you know how, thanks very much busybee.

 

[Beeline]

You can feed and treat at the same time. One of my colonies is being managed this way. You will have to take the super off or it will be tainted with thymol and you won't be able to use it for your own honey. Can you put the frames in the freezer for a month then give it back to the bees after treatment?
My lot won't move stores down to the brood box from above at the moment but will if put under.

When you say "it will be tainted with thymol" are we saying the entire frame - wax and honey - will be tainted? I'm currently on brood and half but moving to double and 14 x 12 next year so I want to offer these drawn supers back to them in the spring (without honey). The 2012 honey will only be for personal consumption but are we talking potential health issues here ..........or just a slight aftertaste.

BL

 

[tonybloke]

When you say "it will be tainted with thymol" are we saying the entire frame - wax and honey - will be tainted? I'm currently on brood and half but moving to double and 14 x 12 next year so I want to offer these drawn supers back to them in the spring (without honey). The 2012 honey will only be for personal consumption but are we talking potential health issues here ..........or just a slight aftertaste.

BL

it ain't 'slight' LOL

 

[wondervet]

For what it's worth we thymol treated our few hives with supers on this time last year (out of ignorance) and not noticed any taint in honey from those frames this year. THyme is pretty volatile and evaporates off unless sealed up. reading the apilife-var blurb and reviews the potential for tainting sounds unpredictable.

 

[Bead]

I've emptied 2 supers this last week, which the bees are cleaning up this week. I was going to take them off on Friday and leave the 3rd full super on for them when I start the Apiguard next week, accepting that the frames may be tainted next year (marking to show for bees' use only!) Configuration will be closed mesh floor, brood and a half, QE, eke and Apiguard, super, closed crown board, roof. I still have a very full colony, and the weather's generally pretty mild here.

Grateful for any comments/guidance.

 

[MandF]

Someone on here must have experience of the use of apiguard when there are honey super frames on the hive?

I thought that whilst any honey on the hive would be tainted, and therefore only of any use for the bees themselves, both those frames when empty, and any empty frames would not be tainted at all with thymol? That over time, any thymol on frames would evaporate - and that however you store over winter will be sufficient time to be able to re-use those frames next season?

It would be good if someone could confirm or deny this - worst case scenario we will have either "lost" these frames, or have to store them for a longer period for the thymol to dissipate. I'd rather not have my girls have to draw out some more foundation next year!

 

[Arfermo]

I mentioned in an earlier thread that an elderly local beek who has been involved with bees for 75 years - yes really - puts 1 gr of thymol crystals in empty teabags and hangs two of them in oppsite corners above the BB in most of his 48 hives throughout the year, replenishing the crystals when they have gone. He doesn't need to bother with Apiguard and the like and sells mountains of honey to retailers in Birmingham with no problems. Your choice. I don't do as he says only because I don't need kg's of the crystals for my modest apiary.

 

[WaxManSmokerBoy]

The danger is that that honey will be moved or deposited into the super while the Apiguard is on and will be tainted.

If these supers are cleaned out by the bees before next season's crop, they will be perfectly OK as the tainted honey will have been removed and any vestiges of it in the wax will have dropped to near enough zero to be 'not a problem'.

Think about thymolated syrup stored in the brood box. All gone, probably several times, before the supers start getting filled in the season, so no contamination from there either.

That seems an awful waste of teabags Afermo . . .

 

[Bead]

Thanks WMSB.

 

[markrogers]

thymol in tea bags

i am a new beek, but with a livestock background, so my comments may be based on ignorance when related to beekeeping.

However i would have thought that continual exposure to thymol, as used by the elderly beek with 75 years experience, would be very likely to increase the level of resistance in the varroa mite. Almost certainly when compared to annual treatment as normally advocated.

mark