Finman
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Typical forum mocking. Try something else. Should I thank you that you donated me your quality time. Thank you, your highnes.
Repeat Oxalic vaporising - but with honey on the hive?
- Thread starter itma
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Typical forum mocking. Try something else. Should I thank you that you donated me your quality time. Thank you, your highnes.
Not mocking. Simply stating by view on your comments.
Finman
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That happens even in better families.
Herra antoi herra otti. Kiitos siitä, hottentotti.
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Ya right whatever. Have a nice day.
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Goodness - it doesn't even make sense in Finnish ?
Are you intent on irritating everyone ? Your advice, at times, is very good but you spoil it with all the put downs and belittling of people who either don't understand what you are saying or disagree ...
Why don't you find an apiary a bit closer than 150km and spend more time with your bees ?
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Thanks for that. Not lethal in humans unless one behaves stupidly or has a very severe accidental dose. QED.
Jonathan
House Bee
I heave read through this thread and still don't really know. Is it ok to vapourise Oxalic acid whilst there are supers on or not? I would have thought preferable not to but if Himalayan Balsam is giving off nectar like there is no tomorrow and I want to protect the winter bees is it an option?
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Hi
This is what I said a few years ago in reply to a similar thread:
"Your question was what to do about the supers when treating with OA.
You have quoted R Oliver.
He says:
*Note that no chemical or drug should be applied to honeybee colonies during the summer season when honey supers are on, unless the supers have been removed for the season.
This is good advice.
The question is if you take supers off I would either clear them of bees first or shake them out infront of the hive. You will then have all bees ready to be treated with the OA in your brood box.
What is not clear is when is it safe to put supers back on after treating the brood box with OA.
Some bees will ingest the OA/sugar mixture and this may be mixed with incoming nectar from the foragers and then stored.
When I posted a similar thread I ended up removing supers for 3 days as a precaution.
Alec
This is what I said a few years ago in reply to a similar thread:
"Your question was what to do about the supers when treating with OA.
You have quoted R Oliver.
He says:
*Note that no chemical or drug should be applied to honeybee colonies during the summer season when honey supers are on, unless the supers have been removed for the season.
This is good advice.
The question is if you take supers off I would either clear them of bees first or shake them out infront of the hive. You will then have all bees ready to be treated with the OA in your brood box.
What is not clear is when is it safe to put supers back on after treating the brood box with OA.
Some bees will ingest the OA/sugar mixture and this may be mixed with incoming nectar from the foragers and then stored.
When I posted a similar thread I ended up removing supers for 3 days as a precaution.
Alec
Finman
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Trickling is not recommended to use in summer, when hive has brood.
You may treat swarms with trickling in summer, but if there is a good flow going, perhaps your brains say that do not mix oxalic into honey.
Bees do not ingest oxalic syrup mixture. Not at least much. Droplets can be seen on bees' wings. They do not lick the stuff actively.
I was at LASI (University of Sussex) yesterday for a varroa 'workshop'.
They are great believers in vaporising Oxalic (after ensuring the hive is broodless, and treating in December - not later), and "Hygienic" bees (especially in combination with Oxalic vaporising).
They are prepared to do a second midwinter vaporising, a week after the first, having again ensured there is no brood, and this reduces the surviving varroa in the colony almost to single figures.
They have also tested the efficacy of vaporising when there is sealed brood present, and found that it then 'got' at most about 45% of the varroa. (Tested in April & May.)
Accordingly, they do not advise this as it only 'buys' about 3 weeks (in that time, the varroa population will have rebuilt to pre-treatment levels).
However, they have not examined multiple-repeat vaporisation at 5 day intervals with brood present, but suggest that it might have to be repeated through two entire brood cycles (like Apiguard) to be properly effective.
Asked about vaporising with honey on the hive, Hasan Al Toufailia (the lead researcher on Oxalic) said that although the amount (from a single treatment) was small, it wasn't the sort of thing that he would want to do.
Additional points of possible interest include their now preference for vaporising from below the OMF, leaving the vaporiser in place and (sponge strip) sealed-in for a couple of minutes after switch off before removing, and their insistence on using a mask rated for use against inorganic acid vapours - as no "dust mask" will deal with the tiny particles resulting from vaporising Oxalic. The Health & Safety specialist was insistent that the masks sold by Thornes were utterly useless for this purpose.
The "Hygienic Bees" topics were interesting - especially as one can do a "Freeze-Killed Brood Assay" without using liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen H&S bit was scary interesting ... a bee suit and veil gives very good protection, but tuck your trousers OUTSIDE your boots when handling liquid nitrogen.
The benefits of using 'hygienic' bees (including reduced DWV titres) only really shows up with 95+% removal of Freeze-Killed Brood, and 100% is said to be easily achievable by normal Q selection methods, even with open mating.
The FKB assay needs to repeated, say 3x, to get an accurate score for a queen/colony, and is best done when there isn't a strong flow.
All the various "varroa resistant" bee-breeding programmes so far have produced bees with these high hygiene scores.
Oh, and in South America, it isn't just that the bees are 'africanised' and nasty, they also have a less virulent form of varroa (the Korean/Japanese haplotype).
An interesting and packed afternoon.
/// ADDED - should have mentioned that, despite their opening up for a brood-culling full inspection in December, their winter colony loss rate is running at about 2% ... compared to the 14% reported by the latest BBKA survey.
They are great believers in vaporising Oxalic (after ensuring the hive is broodless, and treating in December - not later), and "Hygienic" bees (especially in combination with Oxalic vaporising).
They are prepared to do a second midwinter vaporising, a week after the first, having again ensured there is no brood, and this reduces the surviving varroa in the colony almost to single figures.
They have also tested the efficacy of vaporising when there is sealed brood present, and found that it then 'got' at most about 45% of the varroa. (Tested in April & May.)
Accordingly, they do not advise this as it only 'buys' about 3 weeks (in that time, the varroa population will have rebuilt to pre-treatment levels).
However, they have not examined multiple-repeat vaporisation at 5 day intervals with brood present, but suggest that it might have to be repeated through two entire brood cycles (like Apiguard) to be properly effective.
Asked about vaporising with honey on the hive, Hasan Al Toufailia (the lead researcher on Oxalic) said that although the amount (from a single treatment) was small, it wasn't the sort of thing that he would want to do.
Additional points of possible interest include their now preference for vaporising from below the OMF, leaving the vaporiser in place and (sponge strip) sealed-in for a couple of minutes after switch off before removing, and their insistence on using a mask rated for use against inorganic acid vapours - as no "dust mask" will deal with the tiny particles resulting from vaporising Oxalic. The Health & Safety specialist was insistent that the masks sold by Thornes were utterly useless for this purpose.
The "Hygienic Bees" topics were interesting - especially as one can do a "Freeze-Killed Brood Assay" without using liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen H&S bit was scary interesting ... a bee suit and veil gives very good protection, but tuck your trousers OUTSIDE your boots when handling liquid nitrogen.
The benefits of using 'hygienic' bees (including reduced DWV titres) only really shows up with 95+% removal of Freeze-Killed Brood, and 100% is said to be easily achievable by normal Q selection methods, even with open mating.
The FKB assay needs to repeated, say 3x, to get an accurate score for a queen/colony, and is best done when there isn't a strong flow.
All the various "varroa resistant" bee-breeding programmes so far have produced bees with these high hygiene scores.
Oh, and in South America, it isn't just that the bees are 'africanised' and nasty, they also have a less virulent form of varroa (the Korean/Japanese haplotype).
An interesting and packed afternoon.
/// ADDED - should have mentioned that, despite their opening up for a brood-culling full inspection in December, their winter colony loss rate is running at about 2% ... compared to the 14% reported by the latest BBKA survey.
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Is that using the method described in the link below, Itma... or some other method?
http://www.coloss.org/beebook/I/queen-rearing/3/3/4/1
Finman
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.
Controlling varroa with hygienic bees will not succeed to hobby beekeepers. Where such has happened?
You have two months time to handle mites and then you start to plan to breed your own bee stock? Why don't you buy ready hygienic queens and they wil kill the mites. However it takes over a month that new workers start to do their job.
Controlling varroa with hygienic bees will not succeed to hobby beekeepers. Where such has happened?
You have two months time to handle mites and then you start to plan to breed your own bee stock? Why don't you buy ready hygienic queens and they wil kill the mites. However it takes over a month that new workers start to do their job.
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Finman
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Thymallus
Drone Bee
ITMA, thank you for taking the time and trouble to post that information. Very interesting.
In essence, yes...
They suggested a round soup tin as the cutter (with a sharpened edge - allowing a 'twisting' cut), but I guess a 'cut comb' cutter would do. Being on a brood comb, a pair of scissors is likely to be needed to deal with the reinforcing wire.
24 hours in a domestic freezer.
Then 24 hours back in the colony for 'hygienic' removal of killed capped brood.
They suggested photographing and then counting cells in the pictures.
With the cutout version (but not with the liquid nitrogen) you count both sides of the comb!
With all these techniques, any cell with damaged capping is excluded from the counts. The actual size of the cutter doesn't need to be standardised, you just have to count the cells.
LASI identified the frame (by writing on the topbar), and the comb (by writing on the plastic bag before freezing) and DID return the cutout to its original comb, and thence hive.
I asked specifically about whether anything about the state of the colony might affect the score.
Ratnieks said it didn't. Any colony, any time. Just to repeat the test a few times on each colony, to get a reliable measurement.
But later the 'Apiary Manager' said it did, and to to do it when there wasn't a flow...
