Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: JWChesnut on November 19, 2011, 04:37:20 pm

Title: Pale mites post Oxalic- evidence of sealed brood effectiveness?
Post by: JWChesnut on November 19, 2011, 04:37:20 pm

I am a couple of days post-Oxalic drip (3.2% at 50ml/hive).  I had high mite fall for 48 hours, moderate to 96 hours, and a pickup in rate after 4 days.  Most interesting to me is at 4+ days about 25% of the mites are "pale" in color.

I haven't observed significant number of pale mites in untreated hives, those mites are a uniform shellac red color.

I assume the pale mites might be immature morphs from under sealed brood, and the pickup in number are indication that the oxalic drip has some effect under sealed brood.  This contradicts the stated description of its action.

Any comment or contradictory observation on "pale mites"?
(http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/4223/img2923uk.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/10/img2923uk.jpg/)

Title: Re: Pale mites post Oxalic- evidence of sealed brood effectiveness?
Post by: rdy-b on November 19, 2011, 06:34:04 pm

* The pail color is an immature mite which can happen only during
reproduction cycle inside capped brood cell. When the bee emerges these fall
off.*
all this means is the bee emerged before the mite matured--RDY-B

 sroll to pg5 --shows why this happens
 http://www.mitegone.com/pdfpages/Varroa%20Reproductions%20Guideline.pdf (http://www.mitegone.com/pdfpages/Varroa%20Reproductions%20Guideline.pdf)

Title: Re: Pale mites post Oxalic- evidence of sealed brood effectiveness?
Post by: Michael Bush on November 19, 2011, 09:17:40 pm

>all this means is the bee emerged before the mite matured

...and there are always immature ones when they emerge as the foundress mite continues to lay up until emergence and the continue to emerge.  In fact there are more immature ones than mature ones when the bee emerges.

Title: Re: Pale mites post Oxalic- evidence of sealed brood effectiveness?
Post by: shelly on November 20, 2011, 06:46:55 pm

Why would you put Oxalic in a bee hive? Dosen't that contaminate the hive? :?

Title: Re: Pale mites post Oxalic- evidence of sealed brood effectiveness?
Post by: Michael Bush on November 20, 2011, 09:27:39 pm

>Why would you put Oxalic in a bee hive?

People do it to kill Varroa.

> Dosen't that contaminate the hive?

It disrupts the microbes.  It doesn't really contaminate things so much as it shifts the pH drastically and kills a lot of beneficial things.  But oxalic acid is a naturally occurring organic acid that is already found in honey.

Title: Re: Pale mites post Oxalic- evidence of sealed brood effectiveness?
Post by: Finski on December 04, 2011, 01:16:56 am

.
Oxalic acid is absolutely the most friendly mite killer to bees and to  beekeepers.
It is only stuff what you can use in low temperatus and in wintering time when the hive is broodless.

There are no contamination by oxalic.

Carrot ( like many other vegetables)  has 0.5% oxalic acid.