MAQs _ bees on ground in front of hive

MAQS has just become available in Ireland, (I'm in the Southeast) so I have no experience of using it. I followed all the instructions when applying strips last Sat, and today (Mon) have noticed quite a lot of bees crawling on the ground in front of the hive. Most seem unable to fly, many because of Deformed Wing Virus. Can anybody tell me if this is normal? I used the treatment because of the DWV and other signs of Varroa in the hive. Hope treatment is not too severe on a weakened hive. There were the six brood frames required for the treatment.

Expect lots of dead bees for the first two days. Bit scary!
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derekthegardener said:

... have noticed quite a lot of bees crawling on the ground in front of the hive. Most seem unable to fly, many because of Deformed Wing Virus. …

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Sounds like some varroa treatment was well overdue.

Reading the forum (search for MAQS perhaps?) should bring up many threads, many carrying the suggestion that a single strip might be enough for a single-brood national. And my suggestion that using a coverboard with a hole (which I don't normally) seems to limit the worst excess of vapour.
Don't sniff to test the vapour!

Sounds as if you may be seeing the effects of a high varroa load. Lots of bees with DWV suggest that your colony has been severely weakened, with varroa feeding on haemolymph and debilitating bees with their nasties. Your application of MAQS may well solve the problem but not in the way that you had intended. Might I ask how the bees have been brought to this sorry state ?


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Thanks for the reassurance folks, unfortunately Moggs not all beekeepers are born as experts in the craft as you so obviously feel the need to declare that you are. How wonderful it must be to be a master-beekeeper... and so quiet and humble too! You must be so sought after for the kind word and helpful advice.

Actually the problems you are experiencing are to be expected , this treatment was never going to be straight forward


If you report the problems you are having to Paul O sullivan ( I assume he supplied you) then he will pass them on . This treatment has not been tested properly here and is under a temporary licence

Derekthegardner

Moggs has only asked why they are in this state in the first place then you come back with a personal attack. Moggs is simply trying to get more information out of you to understand your problem.

derekthegardener said:

MAQS has just become available in Ireland, (I'm in the Southeast) so I have no experience of using it. I followed all the instructions when applying strips last Sat, and today (Mon) have noticed quite a lot of bees crawling on the ground in front of the hive. Most seem unable to fly, many because of Deformed Wing Virus. Can anybody tell me if this is normal? I used the treatment because of the DWV and other signs of Varroa in the hive. Hope treatment is not too severe on a weakened hive. There were the six brood frames required for the treatment.

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Just wondering if you treated both of your colonies and if both reacted in the same way?

My neighbour used them( Formic acid) for the first ( and last) time last year with a similar result, with lots of bees crawling in front of the hive.
We have access to one of the ? 0xy acid vaporisers and some association members suggested to try it out as this method can also be used at any time.????????????
Did it kill the varroa?

Other colony is in a different area, is quite strong and mite drop indicates no treatment necessary, so left without treating to see how MAQS worked on hive that obviously needed treatment. Treated hive was also treated after honey harvest last Aug with well known proprietary thymol pack. I don't know the efficacy of the MAQS as I am only three days into a seven day treatment, so won't open the hive until next Sat. I can only hope that enough survive with Queen to keep colony intact as they are wonderful quiet non-stingy bees that I would like to get splits from eventually.

I used MAQS last year, and for the first day or two, I was surprised by the high number of dead bees outside the hive, at first glance, approx 200, on Day 1. But I know other folk that had more dead bees than me, but I think that was due to the fact I was on brood and half, and had supers on, so volume was more. This year, I'll treat earlier in the year, July/August, rather than Sept. I did not find a high drop using MAQS, either not effective enough, wrong time of year, too much volume, or no varroa (don't believe that either!) (drop rate was low before on sticky board). Treat with OA at Christmas, and had drops of 360. So between Sept - Jan 2014 (360 varroa came from somewhere!)

derekthegardener said:

Thanks for the reassurance folks, unfortunately Moggs not all beekeepers are born as experts in the craft as you so obviously feel the need to declare that you are. How wonderful it must be to be a master-beekeeper... and so quiet and humble too! You must be so sought after for the kind word and helpful advice.

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Declaration of expertise? Master beekeeper? Your take, not mine. I suppose that you reject my suggestions in similar vein. It's perhaps unfortunate that you seem reluctant to acknowledge that such a condition in your bees might warrant some thought and reflection as to how they got in that condition. Your post does little to help. Mine was polite, aimed at helping you and queried the history behind the condition. Thank you, and goodnight.


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The chances of supersedure with a less than strong queen is not small. Somewhere in the paperwork it says that MAQS exposes weakness in the queen. Hmm....sounds like a bit of a get-out clause to me. Also there has been a bit of an admission that here in the UK last year colonies were guinea pigs for the treatment as conditions/hives are different to North America.

In late august last year I treated 26 colonies and one of my colleagues treated his 35 colonies with MAQs without any obvious problems apart from the queens stopping laying for 3 or 4 days. No queens lost or superceded, no pile of dead bees (maybe the undertaker bees flew off with them to dump them further away?) . The mite drop varied between 5 and 40. At Xmas the application of oxalic aid resulted in drops of Varroa less than 20 in all cases except one where about 200 mites were found on the board under the mesh floor. Not tried MAQS in spring as not needed to.