was dodging the rain showers so didn't open up the hives, but there's a good number of mites on all the floors include the swarm I dosed with OA. I managed to get the stuff on my hands and you do end up reeking of thymol for the rest of the day. ho hum.
Ha!Ha! The good thing is if you are feeding at the same time the bees get trained to associate the smell with good things and become your new best friends.Originally Posted by Nellie
But a word of warning don't get it in your eyes because it hurts worse than being stung
Everybody in our house says they smell it strong when I hardly notice it
Like Henry Cooper with his "splash it all over" the great ??? smell of Brut
Hi D.R is this method temperature dependent ?
Hi DR
I like your idea of Thymol and the bees associating it with good things. I am the opposite. Having worked closely with the NHS where Thymol is used as a preservative in 24hr Urine collection bottles you can guess what I associate the smell with.
On reflection I'm not sure that having them clear out the sponge is necessarily a bad thing. Part of the blurb about apiguard is that the bees carting it out of the hive aids the distribution of the thymol vapour.
If I'd been more prepared, it might have been useful to compare mite counts between colonies that removed the sponges and those that didn't but in truth the level of detail on the mite drop went as far as "1,2,many, lots!".
Nellie you have redefined hygienic bees
They are the ones who grab the chance to get hive sponged down
A friend who used the sponge method had rather yucky, gooey and oddly coloured 'propolis' all summer. OK if you are extracting honey I suppose (as long as it doesn't dissolve in honey or wax, but I don't really fancy having viscose (if that is what it is)-propolis mix spread through the hive.
I wasn't going to say anything about hygienic beesnone of the colonies are otherwise like for like either so even comparing the nucs is probably relatively meaningless in terms of comparing mite counts however you wanted to interpret the results.
Individual hive counts go up and down but if you use a stacked bar graph of all the hives in the apiary you get a clearer pictureI wasn't going to say anything about hygienic bees
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 05-10-2011 at 11:45 AM.
Next year I promise! My worst varroa affected colony this year also happened to be the one colony that made no effort, whatsoever, to clear out the thymol sponges, they simply propolised them onto the Top Bars. Anecdotal for sure, but I found the differing treatment of the sponges within the colonies very interesting.
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