My first use of Apiguard help please

[Ivor Kemp]

Plan to do second extraction of honey on Sunday - three supers - after which I thought I would treat hive with Apiguard.

Two questions:

1. Am I right in thinking that you should not replace any supers, either wet for the bees to clean or frames not suitable for extraction, until after Apiguard treatment or possibly not at all or is best to delay Apigaurd until after bees have cleaned the wet supers?

2. When the Fera brochure 'Managing Varroa' says "When using ensure varroa mesh floors are closed" what does this mean exactly as I have never done it?

Many thanks.

 

[Tom Bick]

replace the supers after apigaurd and you close the mesh floor so that the fumes from the apigaurd stays in the hive for as long as possible.

It will also be good to reduce the entrance and if you have a varroa mesh floor with a gap at the back when the tray is fitted put some tape across the gap.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Plan to do second extraction of honey on Sunday - three supers - after which I thought I would treat hive with Apiguard.

Two questions:

1. Am I right in thinking that you should not replace any supers, either wet for the bees to clean or frames not suitable for extraction, until after Apiguard treatment or possibly not at all or is best to delay Apigaurd until after bees have cleaned the wet supers?

2. When the Fera brochure 'Managing Varroa' says "When using ensure varroa mesh floors are closed" what does this mean exactly as I have never done it?

Many thanks.

when using apiguard, you need air above the gel for it evaporate , so you need a eke about 35cms high

i dont feed them back until after treatement ( or before]

i use a api 35mm eke or four bits of 35mm ish wood to form a square, doesnt have to be exact lengths you can just butt them and overhang the sides-see photo, i then put the crown board on top ,super full of isulation then roof, just filling porter escape hole

The reason of the no feed idea is the bees may be pre occupied with feeding or drawing rather than clearing the gell, so just see what your bees do, they could clear the honey supers within a week, so you can try it

OMF floor closure, just means keep the varroa board in, i als have an extrance block on with the two inch hole reduced with foam to half size ( wasps as well, porter escape holes blocked and insulated roof

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Fantastic. Thank you so much - especially for the image.

So just to recap closing the mesh floor simply means putting the Yellow (as from Thornes) tray in under it?

And put just one super back on over the eke which has the crown board on top?

Oh and putting in an entrance excluder?

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Oh and sorry I have an awful lot of bees in this colony.

Is basically just restricting them to the space of the brood chamber during treatment OK?

 

[MuswellMetro]

Oh and sorry I have an awful lot of bees in this colony.

Is basically just restricting them to the space of the brood chamber during treatment OK?

if its a really full hive and only you know that not us, you can leave one super of frames on under the crown but above or below the eke, otherwise they can start producing QC if the hive is too full, really if so full you should be on brood and a half by spring anyway or 14x12 [that my pref]

and yes that flimsey piece of estate agent board is left in

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Thanks Muswell.

 

[bobandbec]

Last season I asked Vita Europe about using Apiguard with reduced entrances.

The reply;

"It may be fine, but it sounds as if the airflow could be too much reduced with the entrances blocked. In that case, I would leave the mesh floors open as they are; the difference in efficacy you may see is probably not going to matter that much."

I leave the floor open.

Peter

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Oh!

Leave the floor open v close the floor

Put reduced entrance on v don't

And on another thread "don't treat for varroa unless you have to"


Anyone got a coin?

 

[RoofTops]

I found Apiguard above a super much less effective than when the trays are placed on the brood nest. I did this in error on one hive a couple of years ago and the mite fall fom that hive was very low compared to the others where I had put the trays in the right place. When it came to the second treatment I put the tray under the super and the smite fall over subsequent days was high - comparable to the other hives at the first treatment.

I do put the varroa trays in but that is really so I can monitor the mite fall and be reassured the treatment is working. It won't tell me how effective it is but at least if I see a few hundred dead mites and then see the rate of fall decrease over time it tells me the population has at least been reduced.

The should I treat or should I not treat argument is easily settled. Treat with the varroa tray in place and see how many mites fall out. If there are only a few then perhaps you shouldn't have treated but you will have done no harm. If a lot fall out you know you were right to treat.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Thanks RoofTops.

That all sounds like good sense to me …

… particularly as I have just parted with £20.71 to buy some Apigaurd!!

 

[Beezy]

I'm also going to treat with apiguard for the first time soon and like Ivor have a strong colony which I'm apprehensive about restricting to a standard bb for 4 weeks. I'll add a super if necessary, but was wondering if when I extract their honey from the remaining super:

Can I keep the honey in a container and then feed it to them after treatment, rather than before? Will it keep ok for 4 weeks? There's quite a lot and I don't want them to totally fill the bb and crowd themselves out - they already have 4 frames worth in the bb of stores. I don't want to keep the honey myself as it's got some sugar syrup in.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

I'm going to ask my bee inspector a similar question today about 'crowding out' and whether to keep supers on or not during Apiguard so I'll let you know what he says.

One thought occurred to me while reading your thread which is why bother to extract the honey if you intend to give it back to the bees? Why not just keep the frames aside (well protected against robbing) and put them back when you are ready?

 

[SimonB]

Just to throw another opinion into the mix, my association treated the apiary last weekend for varroa and the decision was to remove the entrance blocks to allow sufficient ventilation with the varroa tray added. Two things though, one they used Api Life Var (I think it's called) which is a block rather than a gel, not sure how this works, ie partly fume based or entirely ingestion. Second their OMF floors are different to mine, it has a metal tray with a 'side' at one end that closes the rear of the floor, ie pretty much blocks air movement.

 

[Beezy]

One thought occurred to me while reading your thread which is why bother to extract the honey if you intend to give it back to the bees? Why not just keep the frames aside (well protected against robbing) and put them back when you are ready?[/QUOTE][/B]


That's a good point! I don't know actually: I thought that it might go 'off' if exposed to the elements (the stuff that's uncapped). But if it will be ok for 4 weeks I could just store it as it is and save myself a load of hassle!

 

[Ivor Kemp]

One thought occurred to me while reading your thread which is why bother to extract the honey if you intend to give it back to the bees? Why not just keep the frames aside (well protected against robbing) and put them back when you are ready?

[/B]


That's a good point! I don't know actually: I thought that it might go 'off' if exposed to the elements (the stuff that's uncapped). But if it will be ok for 4 weeks I could just store it as it is and save myself a load of hassle![/QUOTE]



If you are talking solely about the honey that is uncapped then you shouldn't be extracting it anyway.

If it is capped honey then it will keep just as well in the frames as in a bucket.

Unless anyone disagrees, I simply put my frames to re-use in a large black bin liner and then put in a cardboard box in the shed.

 

[george]

Floor tray in , entrance block out .
Ivor , dont be too shocked if the bees seem to hang outside on the porch for a day or two during treatment . Some do and some dont , but it can be a little scary for the first time user when it happens .
And as a ps , you can extract uncapped honey as long as it is ripe enough . More money to be spent on a refractometer !

Lee

 

[Beezy]

"If you are talking solely about the honey that is uncapped then you shouldn't be extracting it anyway."

That's if you're going to consume it yourself. I have to clear it, either by extracting or removing, due to the need to treat for varroa.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Thanks Lee or George.

As long as it's not my front door porch I'll remain calm. I'm off on holiday in a week so won't be there to lose sleep over it.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

OK, particularly for Breezy, these are the specific instructions for the use of Apiguard from my bee inspector:

DO put tray in under mesh floor.

DO NOT reduce entrance size.

DO seal holes in crown board.

REMOVE Queen Excluder completely.

And on the subject of putting/leaving supers on he recommends putting/leaving NONE on.

However, he said if you are really concerned that there are an awful lot of bees, and he warned me that as a newbie I probably didn't have any more than the average hive but they just seemed a lot to me, then make brood and a half i.e put a super back on top of the brood chamber with the Apiguard eke on top of that and then the crown board.

He did say that Apiguard worked better just using the brood chamber though.

Hope that helps.