Natural beekeeping varroa treatment

[Hombre]

For arguments sake, with three supers on the box, conventional wisdom would presumably be dusting the brood box? With a lot of bees potentially parked in the supers, as well as the capped larva. The hit rate being somewhat less than previously mentioned I suspect.

I don't doubt that icing sugar has some effect, but not sufficient to warrant it's use by most bee farmers, due to the amount of labour required for the returns given.

 

[Dishmop]

.
Some have asked what about rhubard juice. --- Most of oxalic acid is in plants is as a calcíum salt, not as acid.

Acid is in the leaves.

Some wood preservatives also have oxalic acid.

 

[Hombre]

As a delivery mechanism, I suggest that the use of Rhubarb leaves would be somewhat less practical than OA. crystals and obviously would be of little use when the bees were in cluster, assuming sufficient leaves were available at that time.

500 colonies for a bee farmer would be a lot of rhubarb in anyone's book.

 

[Mickby]

From other threads it seems that one of the preferred practices of "natural beekeeping" is preserving the warmth of the brood nest as much as possible, I still dont understand how this is compatible with icing sugar dusting.

 

[Poly Hive]

I take it that one is assuming that the combs are pulled. In that case yes it would make an odds. If not then no.

PH

 

[Mickby]

I take it that one is assuming that the combs are pulled. In that case yes it would make an odds. If not then no.

PH

Surely warm air will rise from the top of the open hive even if the combs are not moved, taking with it brood nest "scent", etc

 

[Storm™]

As a delivery mechanism, I suggest that the use of Rhubarb leaves would be somewhat less practical than OA. crystals and obviously would be of little use when the bees were in cluster, assuming sufficient leaves were available at that time.

500 colonies for a bee farmer would be a lot of rhubarb in anyone's book.

LMAO - agreed it would not suit such a set up lol. Cant see the bees for the rhubarb.

Although (not knowing exactly how it is released through the hive) - maybe its the same as bananas. They give off ethylene dont they. I have also heard of mulching the leaves with water and spraying the resultant water direct. (Not Boiling). Though I know this would obviously result in too much variance with regard to dose.

 

[Heather]

http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_...eeding_bees_resistant_to_the_varroa_mite.html

Is this old news?

 

[Dishmop]

http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_...eeding_bees_resistant_to_the_varroa_mite.html

Is this old news?

I think I have read the same thing in several links to newspaper articles and TV programs, and forums.

Just that the words were in a different order.

 

[oliver90owner]

Just as an addition to Finman's reference to calcium oxalate.

This is muchly insoluble - used to be used for the separation of components (in a suitable solution for the analysis of calcium (in cements for example).

Precipitate calcium as oxale and separate Filtered off carefully); convert (disslove in acid) to oxalic acid and titrate with standard potassium permanganate solution at about 80 degees Celsius.

Done it many times but don't remember all the method details from thirty or so years ago!

Regards, RAB

 

[justme]

justme,

perfect sense to me except...

I don't recall mentioning drone culling at all. I agree that healthy numbers of drones is good. Not excessive or too few.

All I said was that if drone culling were not needed, then drone brood need not be encouraged for that purpose, thereby wasting colony effort on drawing drone comb, feeding the larvae (when the house bees could be feeding worker larvae); all the food that is expended on that drone brood could be better directed to feed extra workers. Same with the capping effort, extra heat energy to keep the brood nest at the correct temperature and space used up; for what? Just so the beekeeper can cut it out and throw it away!

I differentiate between natural drone brood and that specifically encouraged for drone culling, which usually amounts to wild comb built on the bottom of a super frame, which in itself means a brood box frame must be removed for the duration of the comb building and brooding, until all capped.

Hope that explains my reasoning - that drone brooding for culling has a cost to the colony and to the beekeeper as a reduced honey crop. Quite a substantial cost it is too!

Regards, RAB

Apologies RAB.
Read it twice and still got it wrong. Splitting headache at the time maybe didnt help, Ive re-read it again now and and there is no 'except'.
So well said:.)

 

[Storm™]

http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_...eeding_bees_resistant_to_the_varroa_mite.html

Is this old news?

My Beek friend is trying this with an addition I have not heard mentioned here on the site so far. And I am only passing on what he has mentioned so I am not sure if THIS is old news/standard practice now etc . .

But the way he tells it is that at some point in beekeeping history there was an attempt to breed bigger bees in order to make them tougher. This was done by using larger celled foundation. The bees grew to the size of their environment. However although they grew bigger their protective plates did not hence making them susceptible to penetration by all things varroa.

By using non standard foundation cell size (in this case smaller) he is making them smaller over generations in order to bring the protective plates back together.

Another piece of info again not mentioned here so far as I have been able to find is that continued dosing with apiguard for weeks is known to put the queen off laying. What is not really mentioned but known about is that it is known to cause sterile drones to be born. This means the queen has to go out more times in order to become fertilised. Obviously not wanted for various reasons.

Now of course I have no idea of the validity of the two previous comments but would be very interested in your experiences/old knowledge/comments.

The only way to learn is to ask after all.

 

[Mickby]

My Beek friend is trying this with an addition I have not heard mentioned here on the site so far. And I am only passing on what he has mentioned so I am not sure if THIS is old news/standard practice now etc . .

But the way he tells it is that at some point in beekeeping history there was an attempt to breed bigger bees in order to make them tougher. This was done by using larger celled foundation. The bees grew to the size of their environment. However although they grew bigger their protective plates did not hence making them susceptible to penetration by all things varroa.

By using non standard foundation cell size (in this case smaller) he is making them smaller over generations in order to bring the protective plates back together.

Another piece of info again not mentioned here so far as I have been able to find is that continued dosing with apiguard for weeks is known to put the queen off laying. What is not really mentioned but known about is that it is known to cause sterile drones to be born. This means the queen has to go out more times in order to become fertilised. Obviously not wanted for various reasons.

Now of course I have no idea of the validity of the two previous comments but would be very interested in your experiences/old knowledge/comments.

The only way to learn is to ask after all.

If apiguard is used in autumn then sterile drones produced will not often be needed for mating at that time of year; or is the suggestion that drones produced the following season will also be sterile?

 

[Poly Hive]

To be honest Storm your friend needs to do some updating.

I can find nothing albeit with a ten minute search on drones being sterile from Apiguard.

The bottom line is that bees are defenceless against Varroa until such time as a strain is found which will use behaviour of one sort or another to combat the mite themselves.

I think it may be possible but it will require probably an international tean effort involving tens of thousands of colonies, and for an individual to achieve it with a handful of colonies is not likely.

The issue for me with people, whether newbies or just stubborn oldies, in not treating is they then bomb the locality with absconding varroa laden swarms. Not breeding swarms but desperation ones.

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing, especially to the neighbours.

PH

 

[Dishmop]

The issue for me with people, whether newbies or just stubborn oldies, in not treating is they then bomb the locality with absconding varroa laden swarms.

the inference being that they must be varroa laden because they havent been treated......???????????

 

[Hivemaker.]

............http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/droneraise.html


Health and viability of drones... Varroa treatment using Formic Acid renders the drones dry and impotent. Thymol effects drone survival and viability in the same way as formic acid, but I do not know the detailed figures. Varroa infestation and Apistan treatment both affect drones. Colonies intended to provide drones for insemination should be treated the previous year so that the reared drones are not affected by fluvalinate or any other residues.

 

[psafloyd]

Precisely

As far as I can see, sugar dusting is a time consuming way of killing a few mites and making a beekeeper feel he/she has achieved something when reality is they have wasted their time.

Like a well known way of getting a warm glow...:-(

How can a process that costs little time or money, is easily repeatable and does not contaminate the colony a waste of time or time consuming?

Even if it knocks of 5% of the varroa, that is 5% fewer. Surely the cumulative effect of regular dusting in addition to the more aggressive strategies would yield results within a short period of time?

 

[psafloyd]

I'm not scoffing. Really. I just see it as non productive use of my time : especially with TBHs where it's a real pia to do,

Ah, TBH. Therein lies the rub.

 

[Poly Hive]

Dishmop?

I was treated to a course at Marburg in Germany where they were doing what you might call reall research. When we challenged some of the figures they looked at us, "We killed the bees and counted the mites" ah ok then...

They told us and as they obviously knew their stuff they said that absconding colonies in the autumn were laden with varroa. Leave a colony untreated for four years and that is what happens. This is not supposition this is fact.

PH

 

[Dishmop]

So one assumes that the bees they killed were ones which had asbsconed.

Had they absconded because they had varroa?