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Thread: Oxalic Acid.

  1. #21

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    Never put poisons in a recogisable food or drink container.

  2. #22
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    True enough, you need to be careful. We have sheets of labels and every plastic bottle or container gets a warning label.

  3. #23

    Default Oxalic Acid.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    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.
    Hi Jon

    Which virus were you referring to please?

    Only treatment I use is OxA in winter and on swarms and artificial swarms (avoiding queen).

  4. #24
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    Hi, there are numerous viruses which are vecyored by Varroa destructor; ABPV; CWV; DWV; KBV; SBPV.

    Source Virology and the Honey Bee edited by Michel Aubert et al ISBN 978-1-904846-77-2


    (sorry for the abreviations early morning and not fully awake)
    Last edited by Ruary; 21-11-2012 at 09:21 AM. Reason: explaination

  5. #25

    Default Oxalic Acid.

    S'ok. I understand the abbreviations.
    Supposing there were no varroa, wouldn't the viruses be spread through the colony anyway? Are viruses normally spread by trophillaxis? If so they would still be affected, only more slowly?

  6. #26
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    Default Oxalic Acid.

    I believe that dwv, for example, is now regarded as generally always being present within a colony to some degree. Varroa appears to host and pass on one of the more virulent strains of it.

    I don't know enough about bee to bee transmission of viruses but I think you'd have to suppose that even without varroa you'd have some incidences of DWV but certainly those displaying outward symptoms of it tend to be ejected from the hive and from observation seem to spend more time "hiding" in cells than actively participating in hive activities which I'd suppose would minimise transmission in that regard.

    I think the main point about reliance on a winter treatment of OA is that while you'd get a good knockdown of mites, during the autumn "production" of the bees that will be needed to carry the colony through spring there is likely to be a high number of mites and no drone brood which can weaken the workers and increase the spread of viruses at a time of year when you really want good strong bees emerging.

  7. #27
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I believe that dwv, for example, is now regarded as generally always being present within a colony to some degree. Varroa appears to host and pass on one of the more virulent strains of it.
    There was a paper published earlier this year about the arrival of varroa in Hawaii by Martin et al.
    Before the arrival of varroa, there is some DWV present in the bee population in several variants.
    After the arrival of varroa DWV is found in 100% of bee colonies and it is the variant which causes maximum damage to the bee population. Gavin posted a link to an article about this on the home page of this site.

    I have a few slides posted on the Belfast beekeepers' site which show how the population dynamic of varroa mites changes with time in a colony.
    Slide 11 shows why a colony which looks fine all summer can collapse suddenly at the end of August when an increasing mite population combined with a decreasing brood area leads to 80% of the brood being affected by the mites.
    Last edited by Jon; 21-11-2012 at 07:18 PM.

  8. #28

    Default Oxalic Acid.

    Nellie, Jon

    Point taken but its served me well for the past years with never more than 10% losses. I might just be lucky but I'm gonna stick with it for now.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Well it is better than not treating at all!
    I think in the long run you would need to be careful.
    All it takes is one year where the mite numbers increase more quickly and you could lose the lot.
    I know experienced beekeepers locally who have been almost wiped out by taking a less than rigorous attitude re. varroa control such as treating every other year or treating using quack remedies. Camomile tea is one which sticks in the mind.

  10. #30

    Default Oxalic Acid.

    How long is long run? Never had any dealings with quack remedies either. Last 10 years been working ok for me. As I said maybe luck.

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