Where to buy 100% powdered suger

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Think I know the comic you mean -Good information there to take with me to Southern Africa. Maybe when I'm out there I'll find one of these legendary queens and use my superior knowledge of the wily smuggler to sneak one home then I could start a new line in super bees to rival that un down over the water a bit.
Have to find a local supplier of mind numbing cheap rotgut liquor to name them after though

 

[mbc]

You could bring her in a cage with some nice friendly beetles too

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You could bring her in a cage with some nice friendly beetles too

It's a long flight though - don't know if I'll be able to sit still for a whole ten hours!!

 

[pargyle]

And five thousand eggs a day! where would you get such a prolific queen RAB?

'Fraid I don't have any spare at the moment JBM. The trouble is they always seem to swarm thee weeks after the queen stops laying which presents the obvious problem of where the new queen will come from. But all is usually OK as less than three weeks later one is sure to find sealed brood. I originally found my first one advertised in a comic. We had 'The Beezer' when I was a child but also read 'Dandy', 'Eagle' and one other, the name of which I just can't quite remember at this moment in time, so must be unimportant. I think that other comic had them. Can you remember that other name, JMB?

This only works in the UK during the months of April to early July, but works in South Africa for the rest of the year, so I am told. Something to do with avian migration, maybe? Oh, and must not be clear skies either! But doesn't actually need to rain.

Don't know about the oxalic connection - I treat effectively in the autumn and leave my bees in peace, without unnecessary interference, until springtime.

Sorry if this is not too clear, but you can PM me should you need any clarification on any points.

RAB

Suagr rolled RAB how do you do that?

I whistle them out of the hive and get them to queue up in an orderly line. They each, in turn, then climb into an upturned honey jar lid, filled with icing sugar, and roll to the other side before climbing out and returning to the hive.

The queen is easy to spot as she will be laying over 5000 eggs per day so will have a HUGE abdomen. She has to be HUGE - think of how many times her body weight she has to consume daily to make that many eggs. Yes, HUGE.

Whole process takes about ten hours.

Any suggestions, like shaking the bees through a funnel into a nuc box containing some icing suar, rolling them about a bit before tipping them onto a ramp/runway covered with a sheet would be appreciated.

et al ....



Very naughty you two ... but very finny ... sorry funny ...

 

[priono]

Brewing sugar is the way to go: http://amzn.to/1ds4cvj

pure monosaccharide

 

[jd101k2000]

If you need sugar powder and you only have granulated, then you can stick some in a liquidizer for a few minutes. Mother used to do this for icing when she had run out of icing sugar.

 

[REDWOOD]

If you need sugar powder and you only have granulated, then you can stick some in a liquidizer for a few minutes. Mother used to do this for icing when she had run out of icing sugar.

+1 I use a magic bullet

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I use Apiguard or oxalic - I reserve sugar for my afternoon strawberries

 

[pargyle]

I use Apiguard or oxalic - I reserve sugar for my afternoon strawberries

Even Phil Chandler no longer dusts his bees with icing sugar ...

 

[Falesh]

I use Apiguard or oxalic - I reserve sugar for my afternoon strawberries

I will only be using it as an extra to oxalic and shook swarming. From all I have read it does remove quite a lot of mites from adult bees and therefore will help make a shook swarm be as free from mites as possible. I certainly won't be using it throughout the year as that would have pretty much no effect at all. I'm still in two minds whether to use it in autumn/winter when there is little/no brood.

 

[mbc]

Jenkins has the right idea, I like it dusted on a victoria sponge

 

[Falesh]

I don't see why you shouldn't use it when doing something like a shook swarm. Figure 11 of the "Managing Varroa" pdf on Beebase shows how much of a difference it makes having a very low varroa count to the speed they build up in the hive. Oxalic is obviously better then sugar but I intend to use Oxalic as well as the sugar at the time of my shook swarm. Doing this will give me a very very clean hive which, as shown in the pdf, will stay clean for quite a long time.

Sure it is naive to think that sugar dusting is an effective treatment, for example there are studies that show using it throughout the year has no effect on mite population. That doesn't take away from it's use in specific circumstances where knocking off a decent number of mites from adult bees is desirable.

 

[REDWOOD]

Making your own icing sugar is great for making an emergency feed quickly

 

[mbc]

Is icing sugar dust harmless to bees ? if not, is it more so or less harmless than other substances (eg. oxalic or lactic acid) which are known to be far more lethal to varroa ?

 

[Tom Bick]

I don't see why you shouldn't use it when doing something like a shook swarm. Figure 11 of the "Managing Varroa" pdf on Beebase shows how much of a difference it makes having a very low varroa count to the speed they build up in the hive. Oxalic is obviously better then sugar but I intend to use Oxalic as well as the sugar at the time of my shook swarm. Doing this will give me a very very clean hive which, as shown in the pdf, will stay clean for quite a long time.

Sure it is naive to think that sugar dusting is an effective treatment, for example there are studies that show using it throughout the year has no effect on mite population. That doesn't take away from it's use in specific circumstances where knocking off a decent number of mites from adult bees is desirable.

If you are intent on getting every mite in the hive and considering shook swarm and oxalic later in the year. I am assuming you will be using a thymol based treatment in the late summer early autumn as this is probably the best treatment, so instead of sugar why not treat your shook swarm with lactic acid.

I think sometimes we can fall into the trap of over treating and only detrimental to the bees beyond the damage a few acceptable mites could ever do. Its all about creating a balance.