Oxalic acid and new Queen

[Green Bee]

Hello

We've been keeping bees for 2 years and have just bought a 2nd colony from our club apiary. The colony was part of an artificial swarm and our mentors waited until the new Q was in lay before moving her and her bees to our out-apiary.

After a couple of days we inspected, removed 3 pollen-congested frames, added 2 new frames of un-drawn comb, fed with sugar syrup to encourage them to draw, and then oxalic acid in sugar syrup was applied as the varroa count was high and there was no sealed brood.

One week on we have found a small number of eggs on one frame, one frame of sealed brood and 3 charged Q cells, a couple of frames away from the frame with eggs. Other than this, the workers are just busy building comb and collecting nectar.

Having seen eggs (but not found the Q) we decided to remove all the Q cells and check again in 6 days, hoping to find that calm has been restored.
Our thinking is that they've had a tough couple of weeks (newly mated Q, poor weather, moving apiary, oxalic acid...) and perhaps the oxalic fumes are masking the Q pheremone, hence the Q cells. Would the OA cause the Q to reduce her laying rate?

Thanks,

Green Bee, Dorset

 

[mbc]

Hello

, removed 3 pollen-congested frames,

I've no idea about the rest of the story, queen sounds naff maybe, but just the bit I've quoted tells a story, bees waiting for a virgin to get mated and start laying love to collect a good store of pollen to feed the first larvae as they start hatching, why remove these frames?

 

[Finman]

.
I treated my all hives last winter 2 times and they are all laying good patern.

 

[masterBK]

Pollen congested combs? No such thing as pollen congested combs as the bees put it there for a purpose. One cell of pollen more or less equals the pollen needed to feed one larvae so removing it is not helping them at all. I thought we had got rid of this myth about pollen congestion restricting the brood nest over 30 yrs ago but it seems there are still "old poorly read beekeepers" influencing beginners with this load of old cods wallop.

I would have thought that the bees in a club apiary should have a low Varroa count if the colonies are used for teaching purposes and IPM demonstrated as a matter of course to beginners. If you have been keeping bees for 2 years you should be capable of producing a second colony from your first one without needing to buy one.

 

[ijcooper]

Pollen congested combs? No such thing as pollen congested combs

Well, true, unless they're in a super.

 

[Finman]

Well, true, unless they're in a super.

If you do not give enough brood space under excluder, they store pollen into super. They really need it every day.

First bees eate their larvae if their pollen stores are finish.

 

[Jimy Dee]

2 comments.
Firstly, I do not believe in this removing frames lark, but enough about this already.
Secondly, and more importantly, I killed out one hive and have as good as killed another 2 hives, after putting apiguard on these 3 hives too late in the year. Never again will I do such a thing outside of the tried and proven time, so you can probably take it that the oxalic acid did no favors at all to the hive. If they have a high mite count, just let them alone to build up (on the basis they can of course) and once established then engage an mit culling plan.

Learn from it and move on. Everyone makes mistakes ! Some (like me) more than others!

 

[Green Bee]

Many thanks for the advice, everyone.

The frames with pollen in were pretty old and we left the more recent ones. To our mentors, this seemed like a good opportunity for a clean out, but it seems the bees disagreed. Another learning curve...

Remains to be seen if the new Queen has upped her game with laying, or whether they still have plans to replace her. We'll find out tomorrow.

 

[Arfermo]

I think you were right to oxalic them for the simple reason that the varroa mite is a vector for a multitude of problems, DWV particularly, and that unless the numbers are diminished at this point in the season you could easily wind up with an unviable colony going into autumn and beyond. Similarly, uncapping any drone cells should there be any is also advisable from now until they have built up as that is where the varroa have a preference to breed and oxalic does not reach them there.

 

[drstitson]

some mated queens can take a good few weeks to get fully pheromoned up and the bees think they need to supersede.

 

[Moggett]

If I was in this situation, and didn't want to resort to oxalic acid, I'd shake powdered sugar on them (remember that!).

Not as good as oxalic but it will knock off mites and seems to do the bees no harm. I now put granulated sugar in a grinder rather than icing sugar. You have to use it straight away as it does not have the anti caking agent so can revert to clumps after a short time.

Doubt it was the OA. Some of my newly mated queen colonies have started making queen cells only a few days after they began to lay. This despite loads of room and undrawn comb still present.

 

[Moggett]

some mated queens can take a good few weeks to get fully pheromoned up and the bees think they need to supersede.

Yes, I suspect this is what is happening in mine.