Are there still beekeepers about who DON'T believe in dosing their bees with oxalic acid ?.
Oxalic Acid.
Are there still beekeepers about who DON'T believe in dosing their bees with oxalic acid ?.
Loads of them Grizzly!! It ain't natural you see.
I am doing a presentation on Oxalic at my BKA this evening.
I did the same thing last year and when I asked who had ever used Oxalic, only two hands went up out of about 30 present.
We have organised ourselves and tonight will be taking names and colony numbers with a view to distributing the Oxalic to members in the December meeting. We did this last year for the first time and distributed enough to treat about 150 colonies. it will be a more this year, I would guess about 4 litres. It is incredibly simple to prepare and costs about 10p per colony. This will be my 4th season on the Autum Thymol, Winter Oxalic regime.
Last edited by Jon; 14-11-2012 at 06:38 PM.
Oh, there are many. Some may have thought about it seriously and decided to use other effective methods. Others could be trying to go cold turkey to see what happens. Yet more have been seduced by talk of tickling them with powdered sugar and other ways of losing your bees - unless you *really* know what you are doing and are watching the Varroa levels keenly.
I'd really like to know what the levels are of effective vs ineffective Varroa control in different parts of the country. I noted that there was a comment that 'Fife was particularly bad' in one of the submissions to the UK parliament, referring to winter losses and hinting at you-know-what of course.
Me? I'll be making up my 75+1000+1000 in a couple of weeks. Hit them while they are vulnerable and get your bees off to a good start for the year ahead.
Beaten to it! Yes, I'll be dishing out oxalic in December too.
Some colonies drop next to nothing with the Oxalic but I always find one of two which drop a significant number of mites - over 100.
Some people reckon that Oxalic shortens the life of winter bees and it is also reputed to accelerate the demise of nosemic colonies.
Like a lot of things in beekeeping it is a trade off and anything which removes the mites is likely worthwhile in the long run.
maybe you could organize a joint project with the biobee membership....Originally Posted by gavin
Oxalic Acid.
Lol! Maybe we could plot ash dieback while we're at it and see what spurious correlations we can come up with?
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Varroa treatment is like the old maxim about advertising spend. 50% of the spend is wasted but it is impossible to work out which 50%.
I am sure some colonies would be fine for a while without treatment - but how can you separate those ones from the other ones which are heading for trouble. Varroa collapse can be sudden.
Hands up. I'm one of the loads who don't treat with oxalic acid. I'll do it if I really have to, but I don't really want to. So far, in my three years of beekeeping, I haven't yet lost a colony due to Varroa. I know it can change ...
Kitta
Starting to see more than a few people minimising Thymol treatments in preference for more reliance on OA on the basis that it's less disruptive and more effective than the Thymol.
we're having another bee safari in late december to go round everyone who's interested's apiaries and do a mass Oxalic Acid application.
Trouble is, if you have a big mite load December is too late for the first treatment.
Your colony could be full of virus by this stage.
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