Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: Sunnyboy2 on March 28, 2013, 02:29:14 am
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After reading "Simple Early Treatment of Nucs Against Varroa" (Oliver, American Bee Journal, April, 2013, pg 389) I have thought about the benifits of treating a package before installing them in a hive. My thought was to sugar shake the entire package (minus queen) in an attempt to knock any varroa that may be on the bees. This would also give a good base count of the parasite. As a rule, I have tried to stay clear of chemical treatments, wishing to rely on more mechanical treatments and genetics.
In the artical Randy Oliver suggests that there is real benefit from early spring treatment , focused between old and new queens, when maximum mites are outside of capped brood.
My thought was "dosent that make a package the perfiect place to treat?"
Do you think any benifits from sugar shake out way potential problems (confusing new queen smell, dehydration, stress, ect)?
What about other treatments?
Any thoughts on this by the experienced Beeks?
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A sugar dusting probably wouldn't hurt, other than annoy the bees. As for other treatments, keep in mind that many (most?) package producers treat the bees prior to making up the packages.
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Ditto what Indy said. :)
Jim
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Either you keep dealing with the mites for the bees, or you have to let them deal with them... in a year, it won't matter if you treated them now...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm (http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm)
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Mites are everywhere bees go. Every flower that a bee lands on has the potential to carry a mite that fell off the bee that was on that flower earlier. And just how many different bees hit a single flower in a day?
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Sugar dusting does not help with varroa.
Simple way is to give oxalic acid trickling.
If packge bees are 2 pounds, 15 ml syrup is very good dosage.
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GREAT video about beekeeping in Germany and rotational system. If you haven't watched the WHOLE thing, I suggest you do--efficient beekeeping at its best! @ 16:30 it shows treating packages for varroa. Since it's in Euroland and OA has been studied extensively and approved for use over there, I am assuming that's an OA trickle (example Finski) being applied to the packages.
German Beekeeping (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKTvp1lupHY#)
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why doesn't sugar dusting work Finski?
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Dusting with powered sugar does two things
1. It gets into the suckers on the mites and makes them fall off.
2. It makes the bees clean each-other again picking off more mites.
you need a tray or a screened bottom board to ketch the mites that fall off or they will just climb back up again. It doesn't kill them.
Linda
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Thank you Linda. those are the reasons I had heard to dust with sugar. I have run SBB almost since the beginning on my hives.
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What you are suggesting has been researched and promoted by Nick Aliano:
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1180&context=entomologyfacpub (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1180&context=entomologyfacpub)
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One thing that is never addressed when talking about treating with powder sugar is the stress it causes the bees and what it does to the dynamics of the hive. Anytime you violate almost every square inch of the hive, it has to have a negative effect on the colony. Now do this on a regular basis, as some suggest, surely can not be healthy.
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according to the study it does show serious mite drop. I agree on the disruption of the hive, but to some degree disruption may be the key to causing the grooming and mite drop.
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Either you keep dealing with the mites for the bees, or you have to let them deal with them... in a year, it won't matter if you treated them now...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm (http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm)
IPM at it's finest?
I like how Mr. Bush takes a simple approach to about everything related to beekeeping.
(and likely so with every other aspect of his life a well :wink: )
I can appreciate this philosophy and the reasoning behind it and look forward to implementing these ideas and methods in our apiary.
The above mentioned article discusses "Common sense choices to keep your bees alive".
When you see what they do when they are left to their on choices, first hand - in the wild, then apply as much of that system (their own / mother nature's system) as possible all crunched into a cubical, then you can appreciate how this all makes sense. At least to me.
Thanks Mr. Bush and others for sharing . . . good stuff, as usual!
PS. I hope you don't mind if I share this link on my facebook page.