I was planning on using the Oxalic method this Dec. on my bees, but an old climbing injury has reared it's ugly head on one of my knees, and two knee surgeries about eight weeks apart changed those plans; ergo, I bought MAQS to take care of the mites before my first surgery. My first and initial question is, how do I use MAQS with medium boxes? I have two hives in my back yard here in town, and I use all mediums. All of the instructions I've read an the searches I've done on the two bee forums have yielded nothing.
One of my hives is pretty weak, and I believe it is tanking and won't survive the winter; it has two medium broods and two honey boxes, only one of which is filled last I checked two weeks ago. I could not find the queen but could find no evidence of a LW. I did see empty queen cells and assume they have a queen, but I'll know more about that tonight when I check for queen/eggs/brood.
The strong hive is doing really well, and I'm thinking of combining the weak with the strong if I can't find the queen or evidence of her in my weak hive. We're still in warm weather, but Sept. will likely see our first hard frost. If I can find no evidence of a queen in the weak hive, how do I go about combining the two and treating with MAQS before it gets cold?
Many, many thanks. With the info that I'm likely to have to go through not only one knee surgery but two on the same knee, I'm really stressed about my hives. I had surgery on the knee in '94 after the climbing accident, and recovery was about a year, and the thought of going through it again fills me with dread. To add insult to injury, I've got no one to help me...my girls rely entirely on me. Any advice on how to treat for mites and get them ready for winter is welcome.