Oxalic question

[mintmoth]

I was browsing the beeculture website and came across this snippet -

"You can also spray (mist) packages or swarms. Over the last few years, we’ve followed this protocol to ensure that we’re starting our research projects with mite-free bees. Once the packages arrived, we placed them in a cool, dark location in the lab for 24 hours for the bees to cluster. Several hours prior to applying the oxalic solution, we spray the bees with a 1:1 sugar solution to fill their honey stomachs and reduce ingestion of the upcoming oxalic treatment. Next, we mix the oxalic acid in a 1:1 sugar water solution and evenly apply the solution to the bees."

What I'm curious about is that if you spray the bees with sugar solution to fill them up so they won't ingest the oxalic, why is the oxalic put into sugar solution and not plain water? Is it purely to make it sticky so it sticks to the bees?

 

[MartinL]

Marketing blurb????

Probably got a Capri Ghia parked up outside too.

 

[For want of a better word]

What I'm curious about is that if you spray the bees with sugar solution to fill them up so they won't ingest the oxalic, why is the oxalic put into sugar solution and not plain water? Is it purely to make it sticky so it sticks to the bees?

Varroa mite have a sweet tooth so why don't they eat up the first dose of sugar solution too?

 

[linoleum bonypart]

The bees do eat the oxalic sugar solution

 

[mintmoth]

The bees do eat the oxalic sugar solution

Exactly, so why, if you're making sure they're full of syrup before spraying the oxalic, would you then put the oxalic in syrup?

 

[Eyeman]

This was in a 2016 article:

However, the sugar role in the oxalic acid treatment is not clear, it is proposed that the sugar addition increase the solution oral absorption by honeybees and improves its adhesion to their bodies.