Will you be trickle feeding Oxalic Acid over the 2010/11 Winter period?

[Finman]

Same here Poly, plus last years hive opening up did more damage than good for me.

hive opening once makes no damage.
Just feelings.

 

[Finman]

I The bee farmer I know in Finland has about 3000 colonies and treats them all with OA syrup. His crop this year after a dry summer was 70,000 kg, achieved without any migratory beekeeping.

oa.

difficult to believe that the crop was only 25 kg/hive. No professional here get so small yield.
This summer many in these pastures got nearly 100 kg per hive. Last misty year was bad.

I know that Juhani Vaara's favorit is rasberry-fireweed pastures and those gove good yield.
The temp was too high and summer rape gove almost nothing.

I had one hive in the middle of rasberry woods. It had only one box of bees. In 10 days they got 40 kg honey. I wondered why the hive do not fly any more. It was just exhausted for that huge job.
What I tell is that when the bees get quicky full load from full flowers inside the radius of 500 m, the result is unbelievable.

Professional beekeepers never tell the truth how much they get honey.

 

[Skyhook]

difficult to believe that the crop was only 25 kg/hive. No professional here get so small yield.
This summer many in these pastures got nearly 100 kg per hive. Last misty year was bad.

I had one hive in the middle of rasberry woods. It had only one box of bees. In 10 days they got 40 kg honey. I wondered why the hive do not fly any more. It was just exhausted for that huge job.
What I tell is that when the bees get quicky full load from full flowers inside the radius of 500 m, the result is unbelievable.

Professional beekeepers never tell the truth how much they get honey.

Finman, you seem to get fantastic crops- over here 25kg/hive seems to be considered quite decent. Is there a big difference in forage, eg because agriculture is less intensive in Finland? Or is it down to your methods? I get the impression you focus more on early build-up than some beeks.

 

[Hombre]

I think that Finman has to have his bees ready at the right strength for the crop as his season is relatively short. Experience has told him when to start the acceleration process and where the forage has been best in the past.

Finman, what were your average crops per hive when you started out 45+ years ago and adjusted for varroa how have things changed over the years.

I'm looking forward to having 45 years of bee keeping experience under my belt, but that would make me about 103, so perhaps I started a little late to achieve that. But you never can tell. I think that another 20+ years will see some essential bits falling off or stop working.

 

[Finman]

.
The secret of crops is migraton, where you put your hives.

When I started, it took many years before i got real yield. the bee ctock was German Black mongrels. Then i got Caucasian queens and i got my first good yields 40-50 kg/hive.
10 years later i got a good Italian strain and average yiedl rised to 60 kg/hive.

30 years ago i bought a summer cottage where i moved hives. It is countyside where is cultivated fields , endlessly much forest pastures and no other beekeepers.

Now during last 15 year i have found that it is pastures which give yield. Huge hives give the foraging power.

I keep 2-4 hives in one place. They gather cream from nature. When nectar secreing is low, they still get surpluss.

Varroa made beekeeping easier. It killed totally black mongrels and poor beekeeping. No wild crossings any more. Insemination made bees splended and easy to handle.

Rape cultivation has increased. it has raised yields. Hay fields gives nothing.

Now i have found that the foraging distance is the key to lift yields more. A rich soil generates more and longliving blooming in wild blowers.

I have all places full of heather but it gives nothing on dry soil.

 

[Finman]

.

25 kg means that a Langstroth box is full of capped honey. Medium box has 15 kg.

It must be to much bees to forage on same area. I have got those amounts nowadays if i put hives on too dry area and bees must fly long distances. I have such sites this year too even if another site gived 100 kg per hive.

 

[Skyhook]

.
. the bee ctock was German Black mongrels. .

My dad had some bees like that. Part bee, part rottweiller.

 

[Finman]

My dad had some bees like that. Part bee, part rottweiller.

Jep, before nursing like bee, when nursing rotweiler.

The worst were hives which tried to stuck the smoker hole.

Quite a nuisance to control mites or something else. That is why they extinted.
Many beekeepers said that they opened the hive first time in summer when they swarmed.

 

[Hombre]

Thank you for the interesting insight into the progression of your bee keeping with regard to the size of your honey crop over the years Finman.

 

[For want of a better word]

mbc,

You may be right but my thoughts were that usually drifting of badly infested bees to other colonies is a very local affair - like within an apiary would be a very high risk, especially a shared one with all types and ability of beekeeper. I have never said oxalic acid treatment should be stopped. So, yes, that would be one reason for oxalic acid treatment in the depths of winter. There may be other valid reasons.

What I am saying is the treatment of thousands upon thousands of hives with a very light varroa loading (as per the DEFRA publications, and often lower), does not warrant the continued 'dose it anyway syndrome' treatments, like we have had in society where doctors prescribed antbiotics for every ailment that came their way. They have learned from that folly (yes, it worked for a while until the cracks in the policy showed through) and are now generally much more thoughtful as to the correct remedy and do not automatically dive for the antibiotics.

All I am saying beekeepers should think before automatically diving for the remedy year after year even if it is not required. There are other facets which may be affected by those, shall we say 'without thought' reactions.

The main reason for my post is that it is about time some beeks woke up to what they may be doing to the honeybee because they do not think about any alternatives but the one that works now (back to antibiotics in the eighties and nineties). Those that actually think about the rammifications of their actions will eventually change, but there will always be those that simply 'look after themselves'. The varroa mite was imported into Britain by a beek. Resistance to fluvalinates was expected but accelerated by beeks. Those were, in my opinion, people who could not care a jot about the species as long as they were doing OK out of it, or were just ignorant of the warnings on the packets. It goes on all over the place, not just beekeeeping. Big business (yes, Bayer included here), politics, international trade and disposal of dangerous toxic chemicals to third world countries are all examples of greed before ethics. British agriculture is another which cannot avoid the problems brought about by monocrops, pesticides, inorganic fertilisers, larger and larger fields, etc etc etc. All short term 'yield increase at any cost' policies.

There are many out there now who have taken up beekeeping for the benefit of the bees, not for the honey production. Good of them, in fact splendid, but they, too, may not yet have had time to think about these treatments they are told they 'must do' as keeping bees from scratch is not the easiest thing in the world, as many now know.

There must be a better solution. Only those that actually think about it will amenable to changing working practices which may be out-dated, less than satisfactory, or downright folly. By that sentence I am meaning there will be those that will not even consider the facts, let alone change their ways and practices.

It is an obvious short-coming of that system (automatic repetitive treatment) IF the bees are slowly responding, and adapting, to the varroa threat. Queen removal and replacement annually does not help that possibility one jot unless the queens used have that trait, which I doubt that many care to investigate; docility and productivity appear to be the main driving forces for queen traits - the former for the new beekeeper (or urban beekeeper) and the latter for some of the former, who don't know any better, but in the majority would be those who wish to maximise their income from honey production, I would think.

I know that beefarmers are under pressure to produce ever more product from never more hives. Diseases are more prevalent with large concentrations of hives (even if further strict hygiene is adhered to). Simples. Factory farming. We have all heard of the factory chickens, I am sure. Probably not the best way forward for the honey bee species.

All I am doing here is bringing this to the attention of all the readers on the forum. If a minority feel the cap fits them, so be it. In this world you have to make changes; for the better would be good.

Regards, RAB

perhaps not so stupid?
all depends on level of infestation.... or does it?

But did you see the U~Tube vid. of a US Beek.gassing his bees by heatin OA in a bit of hot water plumbing with a blowtorch... lethal !!!

 

[Finman]

perhaps not so stupid?
all depends on level of infestation.... or does it?
But did you see the U~Tube vid. of a US Beek.gassing his bees by heatin OA in a bit of hot water plumbing with a blowtorch... lethal !!!

RAB is full of holy spirit. Mere nonsence.

What is low infestation, 2 or 15 mites? Do you know how many they really are? 2 or 5 or 10

Lets look what happens from March tp October whe n mite douple itself every month

2 mites ----> 250
5 ----------> 640
15 -----------> 2000


1000 is a severe limit.


.

 

[oliver90owner]

Finman,

Bull exctreta.

The defra threshold is 1000 mites per colony. Agreed, many have one thousnd mites on a, shall we say, less than very strong colonies. That is not good, for a start. Yes I would like to see less than 1000 mites and usually I would expect that figure is certainly not exceeded and often considerably lower when other IPM controls are implemented.

Your bees behave somewhat differently to those in the UK, particularly the warmer regions of the UK. Brooding can continue all winter through, albeit at a low rate. So lets look at oxalic acid administered in, say mid December. We do know that the treatment is not 100% effective. Let us be very optimistic and promulgate the survival of just one mite and let's take the date of treatment as 20th December.

Taking your workings as correct, you would still have 250 by October? Now working out, the figure using a factor of 1.7 per brood cycle (according to DEFRA), we find there are nearly 600 by August 20 and therefore around 2000 by the time October arrives. This does not take into account a prolific drone content in the hive, which may make the figure somwhat worse.

So we still have a UK colony with far more mites than I would like to tolerate (I treat before October for my main attack on the mite). That is why I always monitor, observe and act when required.

Shook swarms, drone brood culling, thymol, or other treatment of broodless colonies, queen trapping (comb trapping), sugar rolling brood free colonies, formic acid, varroa floors and (I will add) sugar dusting are all methods of reducing that final August figure considerably. The artificial swarm is a very effective aspect of mite reduction - there can be two halves that can be brood free (just remove the single brood frame used to settle in the queen initially) and so treated (followed by initial capped brood removal) to virtually return to minimal mite infestation in April/May/June/July period, dependant on when A/Sed.

There is no reason at all why mite levels cannot be controlled satisfactorily in the above ways, or even just some of them. More work perhaps, but easily attainable by the hobby beek. You bee farmers have a different outlook entirely.

The OBVIOUS advantage of the above careful monitoring (instead of leave-treat, leave-treat cycles) is that the colonies which show lower mite level increases can be nurtured as future breeding colonies. It is as simple as that.

As a bee farmer, your aim is to maximise your honey return for as little cost as possible per colony, thus allowing more colonies to be managed per person and increased profit (or should we say income) margins. To do this you select breeding colonies with productivity as your first concern, not natural mite reduction characteristics.

You also cull your queens regularly, replacing them from these chosen breeding stocks or by buying in queens, so there is less scope to observe and select for these 'mite limiting' traits. Hence your reliance on oxalic acid. Simple, cheap and effective. The one thing it does not do is give the bees any great chance of selection for mite tolerance or control.

There are some bee farmers out there that actively pursue the selection of breeding stocks for mite control, but somehow I think that is not so, in your case.

Other points of note

Main treatment should occur before 'winter' bees are brooded, to minimise damaged or infected bees which are expected to live for perhaps six months or more. So October is far too late for treatments.

The mite increase between August and October can be exacerbated by factors such as colony collapse, drifting, robbing.

Oxalic, although effective, is often administered when not strictly (according to DEFRA) required. The mite loading should not be (it may be, of course) anywhere near the treatment threshold, so often treatments are administered for very light infestations.

Yes, it does reduce these very light infestations but at what potential cost? There are reports of queens being damaged (advised that any queen is only treated once?) and that nosema infected colonies are somehow worsened by the treatment. Maybe neither of these affect the bee farmer, or hobbyist, who changes queens annually and treats for nosema automatically, rather than when actually needed.

RAB is full of concern for his bees, not his pocket. The 'thinking' beeks will analyse these posts and come to a better understanding or conclusion for themselves.

Regards, RAB

 

[Finman]

.
Oliver, don't advice me in varroa issue. And your DEFRA 10 years after another world.

 

[Finman]

Finman,

Shook swarms, drone brood culling, thymol, or other treatment of broodless colonies, queen trapping (comb trapping), sugar rolling brood free colonies, formic acid, varroa floors and (I will add) sugar dusting are all methods of reducing that final August figure considerably. The artificial swarm is a very effective aspect of mite reduction -

And you are going to use all that. You are worse than varroa!

. You bee farmers have a different outlook entirely.

What I speak is European varropa group knowledge. I wonder where the wisdom at once is arriver to UK because your have not your own reseaches.

As a bee farmer, your aim is to maximise your honey return for as little cost as possible per colony, thus allowing more colonies to be managed per person and increased profit (or should we say income) margins. To do this you select breeding colonies with productivity as your first concern, not natural mite reduction characteristics.

Now you are talking about issue which you do not understand. I have studied in University biology and genetics. I know about that thing. Don't teach me.
You are just wrong. Hobbiest have no possibilities to breed varroa toöerant bee stock.

WHY HOBBIEST SHOULD DO BEEKEEPING WITHOUT BRAINS AND DO WHAT EVER ANOTHER 1-HIVE OWNER ADVICES.

select natural mite reduction characteristics ---- I bought mite resistant elqon bees. When they crossed with Italians, they became killer bees.

Oliver, you do not know much about beebreeding. I can see it. Positive attitude does not help against varroa. Tell me where they have succeeded to breed varroa resistant bees
.

 

[Finman]

.
Oliver, don't advice me in varroa issue. And your DEFRA 10 years after another world.

Varroa number douples in one month says Antonio nanetti.Our varrao expert Seppo Korpela says that it douples in 4 weeks. Defra have got 1.7 figure, based on what?

 

[oliver90owner]

Finma, list,

The message I was trying to get across is that hobbyists in the UK can do as well, and in fact far better, by taking due consideration, of the local conditions and infestation levels in their particular situation, without the need to automatically douse their colonies in oxalic acid in the dark, dismal, depths of winter. I have done just that, for the past 3 seasons. I cannot guarantee a continuation without break, but that will depend on my particular colonies' loadings. This year may well require some oxalic acid treatment; I am not yet decided. The situation has not been entirely a normal one - this last month or so!

I know that oxalic acid is a very good varroa-icide. I just happen to think there are other benefits that can be accomplished without automatic annual oxalic acid treatments, and for those who know their varroa infestation levels, that can be a bonus without fear of losing/weakening the colony.

For those that are clueless as to the mite levels - they must follow your ideology (at least until they are not so clueless). The enlightened beeks may make a real improvement for the bees in their losing struggle (at the moment) against this man-imported parasite.

Your position has been made clear; you do not want bees to survive without these regular, unnatural treatments (no feral colonies monkeying around with your productivity genes, is your proclaimed position).

I do not subscribe to that view. Sorry.

There are quite a lot who do not want to follow your route, but would rather prefer the honey bee to take back it's rightful possession of it's environment as previous to this man-imported scourge of the species.

It was basically our fault that this parasite has spread around the world so quickly. We should be trying to reverse that 'faut pas' - no, serious dereliction of 'duty of care'.

Although not introduced on purpose, as was myxomatosis into the rabbit poulation, it may just as well have been. The effects on the natural populations of honey bees has been far worse than for that of the rabbit; Feral colonies are now virtually non-existant - yes, virtually extinct.

It has taken many years for the rabbit population to overcome their infection introduced, on purpose, by man. Some might have said 'good job' if they had become extinct, but I, for one, do not agree; the rabbit has a place in the ecology of the country; without it there would be far more urban foxes than there are already, for instance.

The truly wild (unmanaged) honey bees would have been extinct by now if it were not for beekeepers losing swarms.

Regards, RAB

 

[mbc]

Varroa number douples in one month says Antonio nanetti.Our varrao expert Seppo Korpela says that it douples in 4 weeks. Defra have got 1.7 figure, based on what?

There are no hard and fast rules. Based on my own observations, for whatever reasons, varroa in my neck of the woods in my bees multyplied very much slower than double in a month, four weeks or even x 1.7 in that time - in fact their numbers barely doubled from initial sampling in march till about the end of june when their numbers did start to accelerate , but not by double till the end of july.

Finnman , you should always remember that all beekeeping is local and that all beekeepers are clean locco

 

[Finman]

Finnman , you should always remember that all beekeeping is local and that all beekeepers are clean locco

hah hah and hah

 

[rix]

I think, that we need such beek as Oliver and such as Finman as well. Calm down.

 

[jezd]

The truly wild (unmanaged) honey bees would have been extinct by now if it were not for beekeepers losing swarms.

Sorry RAB but I think that is rubbish, on the one hand you state that we are to blame for the quick spread of pests/diseases (ok fine) and on the other you want to take credit for saving the species - that comes across as typical beekeeper arrogance.

But I know your a good guy so it cant be arrogance

Beeks are playing and tinkering but nothing more in a species that has evolved (or not) over 130 million years!! lol