Oxalic in rain?

[busybee53]

My beek association are very good and have obtained Oxalic for members. If you keep your bees in one of their apiaries it is compulsory to treat.

All hives in an apiary are done in one session and the date for mine is set at Tuesday 3rd January. I am fine with this but rain is forecast.

I wondered what people feel about treating in rain/showery weather as I see lots of people seem to be waiting a bit (though Finman says don't wait).

Obviously the bees (and me) would prefer dry weather, but I just wondered what you all think.

Thanks

 

[Andy Coleman]

I wouldn't treat in pouring rain, but it doesn't take very long so light drizzle should be OK - or you could get someone to hold a golfing umbrella! I'm aiming to do mine by 3rd week in Jan, but I'm waiting to see if we get a colder spell - the problem now is with temperatures consistently warm for the season (around 12C here today), they won't be tightly clustered and I've been told Oxalic is more effective when they are clustered. The other issue is that the Q may not have stopped laying so there could be brood, and Oxalic is not effective against mites in cells. The guy at Pay*es mentioned they were finding large amounts of brood (e.g. 6 frames) just a couple of weeks ago - the more brood the less efective the treatment. regards Andy

 

[Finman]

.
Umbrella? I bought an umbrella from London 14 years ago. It is in good shape. Like Andy says, it is golf umbrella.

 

[mbc]

I wouldn't treat in pouring rain, but it doesn't take very long so light drizzle should be OK - or you could get someone to hold a golfing umbrella! I'm aiming to do mine by 3rd week in Jan, but I'm waiting to see if we get a colder spell - the problem now is with temperatures consistently warm for the season (around 12C here today), they won't be tightly clustered and I've been told Oxalic is more effective when they are clustered. The other issue is that the Q may not have stopped laying so there could be brood, and Oxalic is not effective against mites in cells. The guy at Pay*es mentioned they were finding large amounts of brood (e.g. 6 frames) just a couple of weeks ago - the more brood the less efective the treatment. regards Andy

As far as I'm concerned there's no issue with treating during light rain or drizzle, after all, we are already drizzling the bees with liquid, and any infinitesimally small dilution of the oxalic by rain will have no measurable effect.
Neither is clustering much of an issue(IMO), as the oxalic will still be present later in the evening when the bees will almost certainly all be in contact with one another during the night.

 

[MandF]

my issue with rain wouldnt be worrying about dilution of OA, but getting the inside of the hive damp/cold, and also potentially extra feisty bees to deal with.

 

[Winker]

I did mine yesterday in the rain, i just kept the crownboard at an angle stopping 99% of the rain getting in. It was sods law, i mixed up the OA and got everything ready to go, as soon as i lifted the roof off the first hive, down came the rain. I had 4 hives done in under 5 mins.

 

[dpearce4]

Andy if you can the best day to in the next week will be tomorrow. cold less that 8c if you can do it in morning it should be less than 6c your only about 40miles from me so you hopefully will have same weather.

 

[Poly Hive]

If you are a beefarmer with hundreds of colonies to treat would you let rain put you off?

If you lose a few bees to the weather sorry but it is a matter of the few being sacrificed for the many.

Obviously a bonny cold day is best but, I did mine in a very cold wind and rain. And?

PH

 

[starflex]

Andy if you can the best day to in the next week will be tomorrow. cold less that 8c if you can do it in morning it should be less than 6c your only about 40miles from me so you hopefully will have same weather.

That's my plan too. If it rains as well then that will be both wet and unfortunate.
Time is marching on and it is back to work on Tuesdays, so time to get on with the OA treatment.

 

[MandF]

If you are a beefarmer with hundreds of colonies to treat would you let rain put you off?

If you lose a few bees to the weather sorry but it is a matter of the few being sacrificed for the many.

Obviously a bonny cold day is best but, I did mine in a very cold wind and rain. And?

PH

The OP isnt a beefarmer, nor am I. If you only had 2 hives would you be happy to treat when raining, or would you wait for a break in the rain (or use a large umbrella)?

It shouldnt matter, then again it shouldnt matter if we dont insulate our couple of hives, but we do, and why? Because we want to stack as many odds in our favour as possible, where practicable.

 

[bees4u]

If you are a beefarmer with hundreds of colonies to treat would you let rain put you off?

If you lose a few bees to the weather sorry but it is a matter of the few being sacrificed for the many.

Obviously a bonny cold day is best but, I did mine in a very cold wind and rain. And?

PH

I did 21 hives today is light drizzle than it started to rain hard & so that was my lunch time! & home to watch the telly!

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

How about this for an idea. If it's raining, stand windward of the hive, lift off the crown board with syringe in hand, one minute later the job is done and very little rain dropped on them, only OA, if the bees were given a choice, which do you think they would choose?...

 

[Nic Rhodes]

I waited until the rain stopped and the wind was just gusty, so did mine today. Not to bothered by temperature. The previous few days have been very wet and very windy.

 

[Arfermo]

I'm aiming to do mine by 3rd week in Jan, but I'm waiting to see if we get a colder spell - the problem now is with temperatures consistently warm for the season (around 12C here today), they won't be tightly clustered and I've been told Oxalic is more effective when they are clustered. The other issue is that the Q may not have stopped laying so there could be brood, and Oxalic is not effective against mites in cells. The guy at Pay*es mentioned they were finding large amounts of brood (e.g. 6 frames) just a couple of weeks ago - the more brood the less efective the treatment. regards Andy

Waiting until 3rd week in Jan is, frankly, quite potty - you should not be putting your views of what the vagaries of the weather might be as a reason for any delay. Do it now or risk regretting it later. By then the Q may well be laying. If there is some brood, capped or uncappped, is again no reason for delay. I read an very recent article in Beecraft or BBKA newsletter that made treatment now too desirable for anybody to ignore it. If you know better I'd like to know your source.

 

[busybee53]

Thanks all for the views. Brolly for the bees and a possible soaking for me is the way to go it seems.

 

[yeogi75]

get hold of a good fishing umbrella 54" across, someones when they are not fisshing take them along to hold brolly they might like it

 

[Nic Rhodes]

blowing 40 mph here, not sure I would use an umbrella!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ha
65mph forecast for the middle of the night.
You'll probably get it before we do.....batten down the hatches.

 

[busybee53]

Have done the oxalic. There were several of us. Some filling/refilling syringes, one with torch to look in the seams, one with brolly. Bees were ok but we were soaked through to the skin. Total time needed about 2 hours although I could not stay to the end. Absolute downpour and gusts of over 60 mph. And the brolly stayed up!