WARNING: Treatments and insulation

Varrocides and other treatments are only tested by the manufacturers in conventional wooden hives.
The Bee toxic side effects may be different e.g. MORE TOXIC, in poly and insulated hives.
This is ESPECIALLY relevant to those using PIR covers as these are SIGNIFICANTLY (factor of 4+) different to conventional hives
This is the prime reason why we do not use these treatments,

just went through one of my sites today 27 hives 3 lost to apiguard.

derekm said:

This is the prime reason why we do not use these treatments,

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And the main reason i don't waste my energy on giant tea cosies

jenkinsbrynmair said:

And the main reason i don't waste my energy on giant tea cosies

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But then varroa don't like warm high humidity but bees do
Giant tea cosies can allow the bees to create warm high humidity

td4bees said:

just went through one of my sites today 27 hives 3 lost to apiguard.

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Lost to Apiguard? Full dead-out; brood break; missing Q?

<ADD>Unlikely to be Q loss: she is likely to be the last man standing, which is really reassuring given the concerns Derek raises. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23356051 </ADD>

I'll add my own warning, having looked back over the forum. For whatever reason we had an easy time of it with varroa last year. As drones have stopped, I have picked up natural drops of about 10/day. No big deal, says the calculator; 400 mites. But the first colony I am treating is dropping THOUSANDS. I think I am in time but untreated I dread to think what would have happened.

<ADD>For clarity; Drops are 23/9:110; 24/9: 130; 25/9: 110; 26/9: 120; 27/9: 110; 28/9 (boxes rearranged and Apiguard centred over brood):1,200 est. Total 1,780 in 6 days. This from 2 trays of Apiguard on a double-brood colony)</ADD>

Me too TTLTB. Some of mine 50 per day as brood emerges. Thankfully brooding is slowing down, but I shall keep going with HM thymol until I am happier.

I have never lost a hive or queen to apiguard or Oxalic Acid. I have lost a queen due to MAQS.

Where did all the mites come from??

TryingToLetThemBee said:

I'll add my own warning, having looked back over the forum. For whatever reason we had an easy time of it with varroa last year. As drones have stopped, I have picked up natural drops of about 10/day. No big deal, says the calculator; 400 mites. But the first colony I am treating is dropping THOUSANDS. I think I am in time but untreated I dread to think what would have happened.

<ADD>For clarity; Drops are 23/9:110; 24/9: 130; 25/9: 110; 26/9: 120; 27/9: 110; 28/9 (boxes rearranged and Apiguard centred over brood):1,200 est. Total 1,780 in 6 days. This from 2 trays of Apiguard on a double-brood colony)</ADD>

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TTLTB - I'm glad you posted this because I had a similar experience and cannot figure out what's happening.

I have two hives: On one, I had natural drops that the Beebase Varroa Calculator estimated meant I had 90 mites in the colony on 15 August, 190 on 4 September, 290 on 11 September. I started HM's Thymol treatment on 13 September and have counted 1450 mites to date as a result of the treatment. In the other hive, the highest estimate of mites in the colony was 150 but, following the start of treatment on 14 September, that colony has dropped 820 mites and still going. With both hives, the drop seems to have plateaued out or even started to reduce but they're both dropping about 200 a day.

Where have they all come from - were they all in the brood, waiting to emerge with the bees or did I do something wrong with the Beebase Varroa Calculator? Does the calculator only estimate phoretic mites? Is the calculator considered to be accurate and if not, what sort of safety factor should be used with its results? My figures suggest a need for a safety factor of 500% - i.e. if the BBVC says there are 100 mites in the colony, there may be as many as 500 - or have I missed something?

CVB

charlievictorbravo;44281 said:

Where have they all come from -



CVB

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Not a clue but I wish I could send them back. My GUESS Is I try and run strong warm colonies and they raise a lot of drones. This favours the mites, the last of which are now emerging into a thymol buzzsaw not a winter-worker cell. But that's a (wishful) guess.

charlievictorbravo said:

…

I have two hives: On one, I had natural drops that the Beebase Varroa Calculator estimated meant I had 90 mites in the colony on 15 August, 190 on 4 September, 290 on 11 September. I started HM's Thymol treatment on 13 September and have counted 1450 mites to date as a result of the treatment.

In the other hive, the highest estimate of mites in the colony was 150 but, following the start of treatment on 14 September, that colony has dropped 820 mites and still going. …

Where have they all come from - were they all in the brood, waiting to emerge with the bees or did I do something wrong with the Beebase Varroa Calculator? Does the calculator only estimate phoretic mites? Is the calculator considered to be accurate and if not, what sort of safety factor should be used with its results? …

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The Beebase 'calculator' isn't really to be trusted.
Sadly.
As you have discovered.

IMHO, a better guideline is the treatment threshold (drop) graph, which is Fig 54 in the current edition of "Managing Varroa".
Simplifying even that, a natural drop averaging more than 10/day at any time of year is a call for 'serious' treatment, asap.

Op, I treated with maqs 11 days ago, took treatment off 7 days after first introduced then covered with 4 inch xtratherm covered in ducttape. Today I was feeding and still noticed the maqs smell. With your post I'm now thinking I need to remove insulation until maqs smell disappears. What's your thoughts.

Just leave well alone, Irishguy.

Don't meddle.

It won't do any harm.

Just leave the bees alone now, unless they need supportive feeding.

They need to set themselves up for winter. Any beekeeper fiddling just gets in their way and usually does more harm than good.

Dusty

derekm said:

Varrocides and other treatments are only tested by the manufacturers in conventional wooden hives.
The Bee toxic side effects may be different e.g. MORE TOXIC, in poly and insulated hives.
,

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They are not. Where you have got that claim?

Same treatments have used boath in Scandinavia and in South Europe. No one has reported that it depends on insulation. And they have bee used 10-15 years.
Thousands of hives in commercial scale.

I also cannot believe this to be the case. There are a lot conditions that can affect the treatment. The ambient temperature, the size of the box\es, the size of door and even the number of bees can offset the amount of available airspace within the hive..

I have no doubt the people that create the guidelines have not only thought about this, but have created a big buffer zone.
Without knowing the least optimal parameters, and then exceeding them, you are unlikely to overdose.

When taking human medicine, for an adult it often says take no more than 2 x 4 times a day. The instructions do not state whether you are a four foot shorty, or a 6'7" fatty... or any variable in between. It also does not say what to eat that can speed up or slow down the absorption rate. There is a massive buffer zone designed to keep us safe.

Have faith in the creators. No one likes a lawsuit

Finman said:

They are not. Where you have got that claim?

Same treatments have used boath in Scandinavia and in South Europe. No one has reported that it depends on insulation. And they have bee used 10-15 years.
Thousands of hives in commercial scale.

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I asked one of the senior management of Vita Europe he said they use wooden hives in trials and so do their competition. It would take properly conducted trials to determine the level of additional risks. Toxic effects on bees are commonly observed, but to establish there is or not a correlation with insulation levels is not going to be easy and certainly not from anecdotal evidence.
It not even common to find poly hives used in any scientific trials for anything.
The differences between wood and poly is very big and there is a large variation between types of poly. There is currently no published thermal performance data of poly hives or wooden hives. I think it's a big leap of faith to assume that they have taken this into account. I am not saying there is problem. The issue is nobody knows

peteinwilts said:

I also cannot believe this to be the case. There are a lot conditions that can affect the treatment. The ambient temperature, the size of the box\es, the size of door and even the number of bees can offset the amount of available airspace within the hive..

I have no doubt the people that create the guidelines have not only thought about this, but have created a big buffer zone.
Without knowing the least optimal parameters, and then exceeding them, you are unlikely to overdose.

When taking human medicine, for an adult it often says take no more than 2 x 4 times a day. The instructions do not state whether you are a four foot shorty, or a 6'7" fatty... or any variable in between. It also does not say what to eat that can speed up or slow down the absorption rate. There is a massive buffer zone designed to keep us safe.

Have faith in the creators. No one likes a lawsuit

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They appear not to have tested for this and the difference between PIR and wood can be a factor of 4 or 8 higher. Poly to wood is still 2+

It may be that bees thermo regulation smooths it all out but as far as can tell nobody knows.

Correction: maybe ITLD knows about any difference between poly and wood for his treatment regimes but that still leaves Pir

To demonstrate what is out there in terms of testing... As far as I can detect, there is no standard level of insulation or lack of it for scientific trials or even how it should be measured... I searched the COLOSS books to find one ... Struck out

derekm said:

…
The Bee toxic side effects may be different e.g. MORE TOXIC, in poly and insulated hives.
…

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derekm said:

… I am not saying there is problem. The issue is nobody knows

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The possibility exists, but it is something to consider, not to panic about.

Hive insulation (and colony strength for that matter) would seem to affect the rate of vaporisation of some 'treatments' and thus presumably the vapour concentration in the hive.
Hence my personal preference for just using a single MAQS strip in a polyhive.

But I think its unlikely to change the behaviour of contact miticides. With the bees being OK with these at brood nest temperature, I doubt that a warmer box (closer to, but still below brood temperature) would increase the toxicity to bees.

So, its quite possible that there are variances with some products, but, absent specific reports of specific problems, I don't think we should just assume that there is a general problem here.
Agreed, it would be preferable if the manufacturers would check their products in polyhives …

itma said:

... Agreed, it would be preferable if the manufacturers would check their products in polyhives …

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If enough polyhive owners asked the manufacturers, maybe they'll do the tests and provide a definitive answer.
It would be in everyone's benefit if they did, but if they're not aware of the fact there may be a possible toxicity problem with alternative construction [better insulated] hives, they won't.