Oxalic acid treatment

[Cindi]

So, yesterday the sun came out, the first time in a very long time.  It was pretty cold.  I watched the weather and the sun on the apiary.  Lots of it.

About 1:00 P.M. I decided that it looked good enough for me myself to go out and tend the bees.  Mixed the s.s. and O.A. and off I went, syringe in hand, blue gloves on.  The bees don't seem to mind the latex blue gloves that I wear, I haven't yet been stung when wearing them when I don't want my fingers mucky or sticky, and man can they get mucky, sticky with bee stuff sometimes.  That propolis is a humdinger!!!

I had 5 hives to check.  Started on the south side.  Oh dear, very poor colony.  Too bad, it was one of the strongest, had only 2 frames of bees all huddled on the south side wall.  I drizzled about 10 ml on them anyways.  I have further thought with this colony, but that is another story.  Went into the second hive and third.  Both looked pretty strong with 6 frames of bees or so, each one was in a different position in the hive than each other.  Interesting how each hive clustered in a different spot inside.  Anyways, 25 ml each for them.  They certainly are not the strong, strong winter clusters that Finsky posted his hives at.  But I think that they will be fine.  Hive #4 was dead.  Narry a bee alive, it was a sad sight, many bees just frozen in space, it made me sad.  But I was not sure if this colony would have made it anyways, it was very very weak to begin with.  I probably should have united it, but just didn't do it cause of terrible weather.  Colony #5, which was s swarm that I caught in a town about 40 km away last summer was doing great too.  6 frames of bees, more full than the other colonies.  25 ml for them.  That was the end of the treatment.  I hope that it blows any varroa mites that may still be in the colonies right off the face of the planet.  I have a vengence for this predator, and I have no bones about speaking it to the world or letting the varroa know too. 

I cleaned out dead bees that were on the bottomboard and moved the entrance reducer and removed dead bees from behind it too.  The bees were not overly annoyed when I was working with them.  Just a few that wanted to give me their two cents worth, but no stings.  I think they like the blue gloves, LOL.  So, that was the treatment that I should have done about 2 weeks ago, but it was done.  Great day. Cindi

[Finsky]

Dindi, Your colonies seems to be very small. Perhaps you have not gived enough room for brood and honey. Or have mite dimished colonies in autumn?

How many boxes you had in midsummer?

[Cindi]

Finsky, I know that my colonies are very small and it is a sad thing.  Yes it is a direct result of the varroa mite.  I know that for 100% positive.  I had an extremely bad problem with the varroa mite.  Worse than I ever knew and I lost 6 colonies totalled by the end of the summer, they dwindled down to nothing.  I did not even knkow that it was so bad until it was way too late Finsky.  Next year, I will be ready for these demons.  There was no other disease present, I always looked for AFB and EFB.

I had 10 strong colonies as I said before, dwindled down to these 4,  not so strong.  I cannot help it, it was ignorance on my part and I admit it freely.  The colonies all had 2 full boxes of bees last summer.  and I mean they were very full.  I kept supering them, they did not swarm.  One colony was so strong that I made nucs from it and a split.  Now maybe I made a mistake with it too.  Maybe I split and made too many nucs, but I don't think so, I only made 2 nucs from it and one split.  They were all very strong last summer, no doubt. 

Gotta go make breakfast for kids.  Great day.  Cindi

[rayb]

Hi Cindy, Please let us know the mite drop results. Curious how well it works for you. Keep at 'em.

Ray

[tig]

hi cindi,

     be thankful you don't have trophilaelaps mites.  i lost about 30 colonies before i realized what was causing it!

[Cindi]

be thankful you don't have trophilaelaps mites.  i lost about 30 colonies before i realized what was causing it!

Tig, I googled trophilaelaps mites.  Nothing came up in the search.  Can you redefine what it is, known by some other common name?

Tig, define, tell me what it looks like, what are sypmtoms that you know probably know so well, it is a horrible thing to lose so many colonies for sure.  I'm sure that you now will know how to watch for this parasite.

Does anyone else know what mite Tig is speaking about?

Great day. Cindi

[Michael Bush]

>be thankful you don't have trophilaelaps mites.

You shouldn't use that kind of language here. ;)

[Cindi]

Come on Michael, that is not nice cause I don't get it.  Cindi

[newbee101]

Why would you do an oxalic treatment this time of the year, in the cold? I would think the last thing you would want, is get your bees wet in freeezing weather.

[Jorn Johanesson]

All I know about it is, that it is mite threatning bees in Vietnam and the contries around it. I found a Korean website but could not read it. It must be a nasty parasitic  animal. I found no pictures.

[Cindi]

Maybe someone out there will be able to provide some strong and good information about this trophilaelaps mite.  It must be a nasty indeed.  Cindi

[Trot]

That bug got started in S. China!
Her you can see what it looks like and pray that it stays where it belongs!

http://drone.cyberbee.net/gallery/varroa/twomites


Regards,
Trot

[Cindi]

Why would you do an oxalic treatment this time of the year, in the cold? I would think the last thing you would want, is get your bees wet in freeezing weather.

First off, it is important that you understand that I live in a very mild climate.  We are not in freezing weather right at this time.  If it was freezing outside, I would not have done the O.A. treatment.  That would probably not have been very good for the bees, in my opinion.

The second thing.  During a "winterizing your bees" seminar that I took with one of my bee course instructors that keeps about 1,000 hives, we were advised to do our O.A. treatment on December 1, or thereabouts.  In our climate, there can still be brood present up until November, even late November.  So, it is prudent that the bees not be treated until we are assured there is no brood in the hive present.  this would be around the beginning of December.  Due to extremely unfavourable weather, meaning hard, hard rain and wind for such a long time, I was unable to go out to the apiary and give the O.A. treatment until yesterday.  It was fairly warm yesterday, I knew for sure that there was no brood present and it was a safe time to do this.  Due to the fact that it was not freezing out, and the small amount of liquid drizzled over the bees, I do not think that it would have chilled the bees very much at all, and I used warm syrup, it was not cold.  This small amount of liquid would have been warmed up pretty quickly by the temperature in the cluster (which was not even a really tight cluster, they were rather loosely clustered). 

I trust the advice of my course instructor about what the season is like here and the appropriate time for treatment.  I hope that this clarifies my actions of applying O.A. when the weather is COOL.  Great day. Cindi

[Cindi]

That bug got started in S. China!
Her you can see what it looks like and pray that it stays where it belongs!

http://drone.cyberbee.net/gallery/varroa/twomites


Regards,
Trot

I don't think that there is anything more ugly than parasites.  Insects and many others are good looking for the most part.  The blood suckers of all type are disgusting and I believe have no place on earth.  For instance, tics, what damage they can do if they inflict that terrible disease of Lyme's on the human. 

We gotta hope that the lesser mite does not move around the entire world.  Wonder how it is combat in Asia?  I am going to look at this site  of cyberbee in-depth one day.  Great day.  Cindi

[newbee101]

Cindi, I am sure you know what your doing. I am just curious and love to ask stupid questions. When I first read your post it said "it was pretty cold", I should have read ENTIRE post. I apolgize. I think that I worry about my bees to much.  Keep us posted on how they make out.

[Finsky]

Cindi, I am sure you know what your doing.

Newbee, you are just wrong  :-D. Cindy knows 100,00% what he is doing.

You need not to handle bees "in freezing air" if you polish mites away with another methods, and they are many. In Finland we wait freezing air that we get snow.

Trickling is succesful and easy method.  In New Zealand they are in the piss because they have no brood brake.

[newbee101]

Finsky, thanks for clarifying what I already said. "Cindi, I am sure you know what your doing." 
I did not read her entire post. My fault for jumping the gun.
It seems you get great pleasure from saying I am wrong (OR ANYONE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER)
 :mrgreen:

[Cindi]

Awe, Newbie, I am just learning, just like everyone else.  I do not profess to know everything, I hope I never gave that impression.  I am sure that I could learn for the rest of my life and still believe that I would be short about 100 years in the process of understanding all that I need to know.  It is a great thing to be curious.  If that was not a common human trait, think of what a horribly boring world this would be.  I listen, I take advice, I summarize advices and try to make the best of all that I can.  This is what life is all about, becoming better and better and hope in the end that we attained even close to that we wish to aspire to.

An excellent piece of advice: --  always try to get all the facts, or as many as one can, then form an opinion.  This I have learned, over and over and over:  but still I do not quite get the right opinion most of the time.  I'm sorry that you did not read all of my post, and formed an opinion that caused a little conflict within and without here.  I many times only glimpse things over, and many end products have been not so good.  This particularly comes when I don't read instructions about making things, be it in the kitchen, bee medications, assembly of items,  or plain and simply anything.  then I have to re-read so many times to try and undo an "opinion" or "method."  Sounds a little gunky, but that is what I am all about.  You have a great day newbee101.  Keep on keeping on.  Cindi

[newbee101]

 :) :) :) :) ;)

[newbee101]

I think you should let Finsky know you are a she and not a he.

Cindy knows 100,00% what he is doing.