Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

I have read in a couple places that shaking the bees with powdered sugar works for removing around 80% of the mites if done correctly.  


My question is do you need to use this with a screened bottom board, or just sift the sugar and mites away from the bees after giving them the vigorous shaking?

Most bees are in capped brood.

Swarm can be handled this way but not big hive.

I didn't figure it would be effective on the capped brood.  I was just curious if it was reuired to use a SBB when coating them with sugar.  I truly would rather treat the mites without any presence of chemicals like acids or such.  

I also read somewhere that a guy in the UK uses green almond husks and vodka to make a tinture to treat the bees with.  Has anyone here tried that?

He claims to treat them year round with it and he has been mite free for years but has to retreat once a month.

Quote from: BMACI truly would rather treat the mites without any presence of chemicals like acids or such. .

No one like to use them.

Ummm! Vodka perhaps can finish with varroa, but it is sure that finished with the USSR.

Curiously it is used something similar to vodka with propolis added, not green almonds, in Center and Southamerica. Perhaps can be effective, but actually is not scientifical.

I have done powdered sugar treatments. What you have to do is take the frames and coat the bees lightly with the powdered sugar. Warning this can upset the bees greatly.

You can run powdered sugar over the frames in the box just make sure most of it gets between the frames.

If you do not have a screened  bottom board you have to go in after 24 hours and remove the excess sugar from the bottom.

Repeat the process again 2-3 weeks after the inital treatment.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

...or you could use Apigurd.

Or:  http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

You live on the area of real winter. Use oxalic acid trickling and you keep mites in very low level.  Florida is more difficult place where Understudy lives.  To handle hive every 2-3 weeks makes no sence. One 20 second handling is enough per year.

http://bees.freesuperhost.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1136437131

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/dronemethod.html


(http://pix.epodunk.com/locatorMaps/mo/MO_20334.gif)

That varroa question...and chemicals.

I have used 3 years now oxalic acid trickling. I have very few mites now. Many others report same in Finland. It costs allmost nothing.

Oxalic acid is natural chemical. It is in shrubbard and in many other plants and in some measure in honey.

There is no sign that trickling hurts bees if you give it once.

Tobacco, smoke tar and many other "natural chemicals" we know that they are poisons at least to beekeeper's lungs.

Some think that pure sugar is poison. That is b*.*.

It depends on your where you draw the limit of poison and chemical. Here on forums you see all kind of opinions. Mostly they are not facts.  But if feeling helps, let it go! Information adds pain.

.

Finsky I appreciate your insight.  I appreciate everyone elses insight also, so thank you.  I sat thru an excellent class last night about Varroa control with a professor in Nebraska.  He talked extensively about Oxalic Acid.  The only concern I have about Oxalic Acid is I heard many beekeepers in Germany died from it after about 10 years of use.  It sounds to me like it may have quite a latent poisoning affect on us.  However besides all of that Oxalic Acid is not currently available forsale in the US.  Maybe this fall it will be and he mentioned that trickling is the preferred method of treatment.  Using a syringe and only pumping out 5 mg per slot as you move the syringe down the slots.

He also spoke about controlling the mites with inert powders.  This however is very labor intensive.  He did mention that before any treatment is done to a hive everyone needs to do random sampling of that hive to determine if the hive truly needs to be treated.  Some hives don't and shouldn't be treated every year.

Before I decide which method to use I will do my random sampling.

Unfortunately Finsky we have not had a real winter here in Mid West Missouri for quite sometime.  Last year I don't think we had any nights below 12 degrees during the winter.  

He also mentioned a thermal treatment of removing the brood and raising the temperature to 44 degrees C for 3 hours.  However this will kill any open brood.  If anyone knows where I might be able to buy one of those incubators, let me know.  I maybe interested in buying one to treat my hives with when I need to treat them.

I heard from some of the guys at the TBBA that they're doing exparaments to test the effectiveness of various chemicals for varroa controll through UF.  All Oxalic acid vaporization did was KILL hives.  Formic acid fumigation for 24 hours is showing promising results with 100% milte kill on bees and 98% kill of mites under cells.  Then came Apiguard with results in the low 90s.

When are we going to into the Rhubard leaves have Oxlic acid part of this discussion?

Quote from: Brian D. BrayWhen are we going to into the Rhubard leaves ?

As child we ate "fox bread" oxalis acetosella.  The taste comes from oxalic acid.

Then we used "stick brandy". It is piss of ants. When you put a stick to the ant hive they piss on stick. It tastes good. '

Chemicals are gooood!

We have something that looks almost exactly like that here.  The flowers are just yellow instead of white but, they taste like oranges.  Here we call it Wood Sorrel.  I first tried it on the Appalation trail 2 years ago durring a 55 mile (week long) trek from Georgia to North Carolina.  It also grows here in Florida but, the orange taste isn't as strong.  I used to grow my own little pot of it and put it in salads.  

Wood Sorrel:

I use a sifter over the top of the super & then brush the excess powdered sugar onto the bees between the frames with my bee brush. It seems to work well, but I feel that you need to have screened bottom boards on. There is lots of evidence that the varroa can crawl back up on a passing bee if they fall off on a solid bottom board. I hope that helps!
PS: please be sure and repeat in 10 days to get the mites which were shielded form the treatment by being ion capped cells at the time.

In May I tried a series of powdered sugar treatments 3 weeks in a row and was pleased with the mite fall but not with the various homemade dusters I created. With the promise of sunshine I will try again with a pump duster made for dusting roses from Ace Hardware. The powdered sugar on the suction cups of the mites' feet should prevent them from reattaching. However, I feel more secure with the SBB.

Amy

http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1276045&cp=&origkw=duster&kw=duster&parentPage=search&searchId=18190624852

We have oxalis too, the yellow one, like apis629. Children enjoy the taste here too. So it is called "vinagrera", because taste is similar to vinegar.
It is a great source of nectar and pollen, but only the cold months of winter and the days are so short that I can´t obtein "oxalis honey"

There are square kms of oxalis in the "salinas" around the mountains of salt.

(http://img332.imageshack.us/img332/6756/salinaan8.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

By the way, salt is chemical, ....Honey is chemical too. At the end, everything is chemical.

>By the way, salt is chemical, ....Honey is chemical too. At the end, everything is chemical.

I'd still rather eat salt or honey than cumaphos or fluvalinate...

errrmmm, looks like i'll be the one to go "offtopic" in a way :P
most of beekeepers here y+use another way in controling varoe. almost everybody beekeep in AŽ 10 frame hives. from 10 frames-combs in the hive we take one out..beeh i've complicated. instead of putting 10 full foundations we put 9,5 if you understand. bees tend to build drone cells in unfounded areas. when drones are capped and you can see that they're big, you cut out all the drone cells with which you remove quite a lot of varoa (varoa likes drone cells). this may be done again and again. some say it's very efficient, some say it might cause varoa to concentrate on worker cells.

>>By the way, salt is chemical, ....Honey is chemical too. At the end, everything is chemical.

Let us all agree that there is a BIG difference on the effect and affect of natural occuring chemicals verses artificially manufactured ones.  Artificial chemicals (man made) are the ones that create such havoc on this planet of ours.

<Artificial chemicals (man made)>
I understand your idea, and I am agree in the basic. But things are not so clear. Pyretroids are natural, thymol is in the middle of the way...There are not a word to design the "poison chemical" versus "ecologic chemical"

Quote from: abejarucoBy the way, salt is chemical, ....Honey is chemical too. At the end, everything is chemical.

Oh now! Life is physics and chemistry. Not mere chemistry. But you can make beekeeping really difficult with your spiritual imagination.  :shock: