Vaping with brood

[westiev8]

Hi All.. I've been vaping my one hive through September every 5/6 days to reduce the mites going in to winter, the hive is strong with plenty of stores having fed them 25kg of 2-1 syrup.. at this months bee meeting one the members said that oxalic acid vaping kills the brood and should only be done brood less ... is that true?

 

[Show me the honey]

That's not true don't worry one time treatment is more effective during broodless period, treating 3 times 5-7 days apart is to get the mites in a full cycle

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hi All.. I've been vaping my one hive through September every 5/6 days to reduce the mites going in to winter, the hive is strong with plenty of stores having fed them 25kg of 2-1 syrup.. at this months bee meeting one the members said that oxalic acid vaping kills the brood and should only be done brood less ... is that true?

No. Not true.
It's just that the vapour doesn't penetrate cappings so gets only the phoretic mites this is why you get more percentage knock down in brood less periods.
Some of us are having a real problem in the odd hive. How many times have you vaped and what has the drop been?

 

[madasafish]

at this months bee meeting one the members said that oxalic acid vaping kills the brood and should only be done brood less ... is that true?

It is untrue.
But if you vape with brood present, you don't kill the mites in the brood. Even after 4 weekly applications in 2016 on one badly infected hive it still had hundreds of mites.

Based my personal experience - and without any scientific evidence - I will not vape when there is much brood , preferring to wait till January. In the meantime I use Apiguard . For very bad cases, I follow that with Apistan..(Not that I like chemical treatments but sometimes needs must)

 

[westiev8]

Thanks for the replies.. I've vaped 5 times at 5/6 day intervals mite drop no more than 50 mites on the bottom inspection board.

 

[Eyeman]

Thanks for the replies.. I've vaped 5 times at 5/6 day intervals mite drop no more than 50 mites on the bottom inspection board.

Is that 50 mites in total after x5 vapes?
Did you make the insert board sticky?

 

[westiev8]

50 mites each time.....

 

[Millet]

50 mites each time.....

How long did you leave the tray in before inspecting.?

Here is something from a book i have read.
It is going on an average daily mite drop.
0.5 wintering and going into spring is likely to collapse by the end of the season without treatment.
The colony needs treatment if you have a average daily mite drop OF.

6 in May
10 in June
16 in July
33 in August or the cycle begins again with 20 in September.
This is a untreated colony by the way, depending when you vaped and inspected you may get a lot more dropping.

 

[westiev8]

I left the tray in between treatments ( so 5/6 days at a time )