Sugar Dusting. Yes or No?

[Frizzaldo]

I agree.

i don’t think you do. Do you think it‘s wise for a new beekeeper with one or two hives to start developing their own cures or starting to try breeding their own resilient strain of bees?

Learn the basics first ( which will take more than two years in almost every case) then when you have sufficient experience and enough hives to make the results meaningful try these things out.

 

[user 20297]

I am embarking on a little experiment to use icing sugar dusting to treat varroa mites hopefully making a report for Bee craft and the FIBKA magazines.

Go ahead with your experiment and please add what you discover, positive or negative, to the pool of knowledge on this forum. Maybe I missed it, but of the naysayers, I haven't seen anyone who has said that they know dusting doesn't work from first hand experience.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Go ahead with your experiment and please add what you discover, positive or negative, to the pool of knowledge on this forum. Maybe I missed it, but of the naysayers, I haven't seen anyone who has said that they know dusting doesn't work from first hand experience.

You don’t have to do things yourself to know they don’t work. I don’t think anybody has said don’t do it just that it doesn’t work.

 

[user 819]

Randy has said with his experiments dusting reduces parasitic mite by up to 50% but overall it has no real affect on the mite population which is doing the real damage in capped cells, it has no effect on a colony containing brood.
It's effectiveness is with brood less colonies but to be honest a OA vape is so much easier and quicker.

 

[Bumble Bee Slim]

Just wondering if anyone uses sugar dusting for accelerated drop as means of mite counting ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Just wondering if anyone uses sugar dusting for accelerated drop as means of mite counting ?

I don’t, though it does work if you are liberal with the sugar. It still has the potential to kill brood. I use OAV. Be careful how you interpret it though. It depends on the season snd the amount of brood. Best is sugar roll or alcohol wash.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just wondering if anyone uses sugar dusting for accelerated drop as means of mite counting ?

If people want an accurate estimate of mite levels they will use icing sugar in a proper, controlled sugar roll test - not just sprinkle the bees as if thery were Wimbledon strawberries

 

[Finman]

Icing sugar dusting has fallen out of favour on here. However some people have used icing sugar dusting and it has worked for them, so there's no reason to not have a go and write up the conclusions. If the conclusions confirm other studies, so well and good.

It has bee reseaches with academic researches, that sugar dusting does not work. Many times.


Garlic.... I read garlic healty properties from google. There lots of evidencied what garlic heals. But every writer had his own list, where the gaclic affect. Tens of diseases what oy heals alltogether. It solves all common public health dieases . Perhaps tobacco harms were not on lists.

 

[user 819]

If people want an accurate estimate of mite levels they will use icing sugar in a proper, controlled sugar roll test - not just sprinkle the bees as if thery were Wimbledon strawberries

You have done it now JBK we have had Rhubarb and Banana's in colonies now someone will mis construe your words and try them (Strawbs) as well now.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You have done it now JBK we have had Rhubarb and Banana's in colonies now someone will mis construe your words and try them (Strawbs) as well now.

I remember when I worked in the VAT office in Bristol, two young ladies used to turn up every morning selling hand made fresh sandwiches, their speciality (which everyone fought over) was a banana and strawberry sandwich on wholemeal bread (with real salted butter of course)

 

[madasafish]

Go ahead with your experiment and please add what you discover, positive or negative, to the pool of knowledge on this forum. Maybe I missed it, but of the naysayers, I haven't seen anyone who has said that they know dusting doesn't work from first hand experience.

I have posted that I use sugar dusting to kill bee larvae. I would be surprised if anyone viewed that as a vote for sugar dusting...

 

[madasafish]

None. I haven’t lost any of my colonies over winter since 2010 when I moved to this Apiary. I have no idea why, except they are very well fed, in an extremely nice spot with no damp, plenty of sun, and quite sheltered, and are obviously healthy. I say obviously, because they haven’t died! Before that, I did lose a couple of colonies, separately, which were in the garden.

That is an amazing record. My records show the only year I lost no colonies was the year I started in 2010 !

 

[madasafish]

Just wondering if anyone uses sugar dusting for accelerated drop as means of mite counting ?

Drop counts give meaningless answers so what is the point of doing them?

 

[user 20528]

It's effectiveness is with brood less colonies but to be honest a OA vape is so much easier and quicker.

Is it cheaper?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Is it cheaper?

It works

 

[user 20528]

It works

At what cost to the pocket and Bees?

 

[user 20528]

Randy has said with his experiments dusting reduces parasitic mite by up to 50% but overall it has no real affect on the mite population which is doing the real damage in capped cells, it has no effect on a colony containing brood.
It's effectiveness is with brood less colonies but to be honest a OA vape is so much easier and quicker.

Is it really easier? Randy did it in 15 sec.

 

[user 20528]

This is quoted from Randy Oliver:


The estimated effect of powdered sugar dusting over a screened bottom on mite population growth, based upon a starting population of 100 mites, a daily growth rate of 2.4%, and an estimated kill of 50% of the phoretic mites per dusting treatment. Note that weekly dustings would result in a decrease in the mite population. These curves are based upon very crude math, and are only for general illustrative purposes, although they confirm field experience.


Note that the control curve reaches a devastating mite level by September 1st. Monthly dusting in this model keeps the mite population below a moderate threshold of 3000 mites, and bimonthly dusting keeps ‘em below 1000—a load that is considered acceptable by most all authorities. The weekly dustings actually decreased the mite population over the treatment period.


Not only that, but the illustrated curves likely underestimate the effect of sugar dusting, since even though it effectively kills only a sixth of the mites, the mites killed are those that would have been most likely to survive to reproduce. That is, once a mite is in the phoretic stage, its natural mortality rate is very low—about 0.6% (6 out of 1000) per day, as compared to the 20 –30% mortality of those first emerging from cells (Martin 1998). Although about two-thirds of the mites are under cappings and thereby protected from dusting treatments, that proportion is tempered by the fact that a quarter of them will not survive through emergence. This makes the mortality of the phoretic mites more important than their proportion might indicate. Recall from my discussion of mite population dynamics that that a female mite needs to average 2-3 reproductive cycles for varroa populations to grow at the pace that we see in the field. If sugar dusting knocks a mite down early in her life, she will be unable to complete multiple cycles. The surprising effectiveness of sugar dusting may due to its impact on the average number of reproductive cycles that a mite can complete.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

At what cost to the pocket and Bees?

Unlike sugar - where the greatest cost is probably reduced honey yield a,d increased bee or colony mortality. It has been proven that OA sublimation has no adverse effects (either long or short term) on the bees.
But of course, if your aim is to spend as little money as possible, rather than effectiveness of the treatment.....................

 

[user 20528]

Unlike sugar - where the greatest cost is probably reduced honey yield and increased bee or colony mortality. It has been proven that OA sublimation has no adverse effects (either long or short term) on the bees.
But of course, if your aim is to spend as little money as possible, rather than effectiveness of the treatment.....................

Ever heard of Poor Beekeepers Syndrome?