Wet Supers

[luckydunny]

First year and honey from two of my hives. Extarcted 61lbs and am over moon!!!
Have put wet supers back above crown board for bees to clean.
Am keen to get Apivar on but do not want to contaminate next years honey supers.
I guess the answer to the question how long to leave before removing is how long the bees take to clean them!!

What do the more experienced bee keepers estimate the time?

They have been on 3 days now and was going to look at weekend.

Thanks in advance for thoughts.

 

[drstitson]

1-2 days.

 

[Arfermo]

First year and honey from two of my hives. Am keen to get Apivar on but do not want to contaminate next years honey supers.QUOTE]

See the current UK-wide weather forecast. Too late for effective thymol treatment as you need min temp of 15 C for it to evaporate and a full course takes 4 weeks. Make sure you do not miss the oxalic at Xmas - plus some fondant as a prezzie, just in case.

 

[luckydunny]

Thanks Arfermo for info.
Being more specific I am in IOW and temperatures are still 16-18 and today was 19!!
Getting colder soon no doubt, so tommorrow will inspect, remove wet supers and put treatment on.
With your advice will plan a December Oxalicand buy/make some fondant.
Anyway fingers crossed!!

 

[Hombre]

See the current UK-wide weather forecast. Too late for effective thymol treatment as you need min temp of 15 C for it to evaporate and a full course takes 4 weeks.

As a matter of some interest, given that the thymol/Apiguard treatment is placed on the top bars; what is the average temperature likely to be in this area of the hive for a hive occupied by:

A). a colony with brood,
B). a colony that is broodless,​

over the next four to six weeks, on a week by week basis, given that the colony is of good size?

The thymol isn't evaporated in the free ambient external atmosphere of course.

Does the answer suggest that what we have accepted a bit of a fallacy for a number of years now?

I accept that thymol treatments may not be quite as efficacious as the outside, and particularly the overnight temperatures, fall but I suggest that the treatments will be far from wasted and if used in conjunction with OA at Christmas, will be entirely adequate.

 

[jezd]

See the current UK-wide weather forecast. Too late for effective thymol treatment as you need min temp of 15 C for it to evaporate and a full course takes 4 weeks. Make sure you do not miss the oxalic at Xmas - plus some fondant as a prezzie, just in case.

Rubbish, safe to treat well in to October

Even if it was valid the forecast is for 17'c plus over the next week, below average yes.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just had the SBI around today, not at all bothered I hadn't started treatment yet (and he keeps plugging on about treating your bees) it will still be ok to start in a few weeks - definitely in the Solent area

 

[Hombre]

Ha ha, don't hold back Jezd, just say what you think . . .

Hope you have had a good year. I'm getting close to 20 colonies now, will update my count when I've started/finished my varroa treatments and decided what's going into winter.