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Author Topic: Organic chemical control of varroa  (Read 6383 times)

Offline Finsky

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Organic chemical control of varroa
« on: February 23, 2007, 11:30:15 pm »
http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=b301510f&JournalCode=PO

A range of chemicals that occur naturally in the honey bee
colony environment and that are present in honey can
be used to control V. destructor. The most commonly
used so-called organic acaricides are formic, lactic and
oxalic acids.
It is believed that the acaricidial effect is based
directly on a lowered pH which is less well tolerated by the
smaller mite than the larger bee. Thymol, a substance found
in high quantities in some types of honey, is also widely
used.

Formic acid has been the most commonly used organic
acid for varroa mite control. There are numerous ways of
applying formic acid to control varroa. An advantage with
formic acid is that there is also some miticidal effect on
mites in sealed brood (Fries, 1991). Disadvantages include
variation in efficacy and risks for the user handling concentrated
acid.
Formic acid fumigation is best used in the
temperature range 12–25°C. Below this temperature the
efficacy is reduced and above this temperature the bees may
become agitated and leave the hive.

Lactic acid is applied in a 15% water solution sprayed
directly on each comb side covered with bees. The treatment
is very effective if repeated three times and well tolerated by
the bees (Brødsgaard et al., 1997). However, it is very labour
intensive.

Oxalic acid has more recently proved to be highly
effective for mite control, both applied dissolved in sugar
solution dripped onto the bees  or as a fumigant applied
after heating oxalic acid crystals inside the bee hive

Oxalic acid is only effective in broodless
colonies and if applied in the late autumn problems with
increased residues in honey are minimal.

Offline buzzbee

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Online Michael Bush

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2007, 06:56:08 pm »
Has it occurred to anyone that if lowering the pH helps kill the mites or at least have a detrimental effect on them, that feeding sugar syrup is raising the pH.  Sugar syrup is much more alkali than honey.
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Offline buzzbee

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2007, 06:59:26 pm »
So is feeding beneficial to the  mites?

Offline randydrivesabus

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2007, 09:24:25 am »
following through with that it makes sense to save some honey for the bees to feed back as needed. or to find an additive for syrup that lowers the PH and doesn't harm the bees. or will the mites adapt?

Offline pdmattox

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2007, 09:29:21 am »
Boy that subject title through me a bit. Very intersting with that syrup thing cause When I do a Aprigaud treatment I also turn a jar of syrup up and still have an effective mite kill.

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2007, 09:58:55 pm »
>So is feeding beneficial to the  mites?

That's my question.  I don't think anyone has attempted to find the answer.
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Offline Finsky

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2007, 11:14:06 pm »
Has it occurred to anyone that if lowering the pH helps kill the mites or at least have a detrimental effect on them, that feeding sugar syrup is raising the pH.  Sugar syrup is much more alkali than honey.


What a  question? If bees winter with honey or sugar, in both cases mite kills.

Feeding add mites because it prolong brooding time. Normally hive stops brooding here in the end of August but when I feed sugar, brooding starts in in 1-2 frames. Mites concentrates in those last bees, and violate them,  - if mites are many.

What alternatives?  Wintering with honey is not an alternative against mite. So I rob the honey and replace winter food with sugar. And what is pH? It is same to me what it is. I have no alternatives and it has not shown that making sugar more acid makes any advantage in wintering. Mite not rules my nursing what I do. I command mites.

I think that it is too complicate to generate this kind of questions because it will not continue to any practical solution.
Beekeepers have surely tried against varroa hundreds of tricks and varroa is still happily alive.

.


Online Michael Bush

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2007, 11:25:38 pm »
Let's try it another way in general.  Is the difference in pH between sugar syrup and honey important for the health of the bees?

Since we know that Chalkbrood requires a pH that is outside the range of honey but inside the range of sugar syrup, I'd have to say the research is that it does:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11767561&dopt=AbstractPlus

And so does Nosema: 
http://www.modares.ac.ir/elearning/Dalimi/Proto/Lectures/week15/sporege.htm

So if both of these microorganisms prefer a more alkali environment, what about the Varroa mites?  What about the tracheal mites?

How are we affecting the health of the bees by feeding them something that gives an advantage to their diseases?
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Offline Cindi

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2007, 12:20:00 am »
Let's try it another way in general.  Is the difference in pH between sugar syrup and honey important for the health of the bees?

Since we know that Chalkbrood requires a pH that is outside the range of honey but inside the range of sugar syrup, I'd have to say the research is that it does:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11767561&dopt=AbstractPlus
And so does Nosema: 
http://www.modares.ac.ir/elearning/Dalimi/Proto/Lectures/week15/sporege.htm
So if both of these microorganisms prefer a more alkali environment, what about the Varroa mites?  What about the tracheal mites?
How are we affecting the health of the bees by feeding them something that gives an advantage to their diseases?

Michael, I couldn't access the first site, but the second one was quite interesting.

These microorganisms obviously prefer a more alkali environment, but they are microorganisms.  The mites are kind of in a different realm.  Not sure if they can be equated to each other?  Comment??????

I liked this in the second site (in case others could not get into this site), it was interesting and I quote:

"Spores of Nosema apis (Olsen et al., 1986) and Nosema locustae (Undeen and Epsky, 1990) and many other microsporidia germinate after desiccation only if they are rehydrated in a solution with the right pH and ion content."

Good discussion going on here.  Have a wonderful and beautiful day. Cindi
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Online Michael Bush

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2007, 07:18:24 am »
Quoting Finsky:

"It is believed that the acaricidial effect is based
directly on a lowered pH which is less well tolerated by the
smaller mite than the larger bee. "
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Offline Cindi

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2007, 10:57:17 am »
Thinking about things.  Two years in a row one colony of the two package bees I purchased contracted chalkbrood.  We know that sometimes we must feed sugar syrup to package bees. (unless of course we have honey stores for them).  I am thinking now, for the 6 weeks after any packages I install, I will endeavour to feed honey, not sugar syrup. 

I could not clear up the chalkbrood in both these colonies from package bees each year.  I killed the queens each year, and combined these colonies with another.  Hmmm......seems there is a lot more learnin' to be goin' on.  See, still on the tip of that iceberg and don't know if I will ever get off it.  Have a wonderful day, great life.  Cindi
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Offline Finsky

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2007, 04:39:33 pm »
Let's try it another way in general.  Is the difference in pH between sugar syrup and honey important for the health of the bees?

........
How are we affecting the health of the bees by feeding them something that gives an advantage to their diseases?

Lucky I am have not knew that. My bees live with syrup 9 months from September to end of May.
They survive over winter and die before the end of May. New bees begings to hatch during May.

I am not worried about pH or bees healthy. It is what it is. But now I have digital pH meter and I can measure winter food's pH. It helps nothing. I have not seen any documents which tell that acid in syrup hinders any troubles of bees.  Those acid invertings were know before I started beekeeping. I think that they are more products of imagination than real truth.

Offline Finsky

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2007, 04:55:10 pm »
Quoting Finsky:

"It is believed that the acaricidial effect is based
directly on a lowered pH which is less well tolerated by the
smaller mite than the larger bee. "


That is not Mr. Finsky's text. It is by Klaus Wallner1 from Universität Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany and Ingemar Fries2 from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala,

My opinion is that stirring on some pH helps us nothing. Bee colonies in nature die as well as in home yard filled with sugar.

Those professors may write what ever but my colonies are alive on my cottage yard. And there is no real recommendations that diseases are cured with pH.

And it is reported everywhere  about chalkbrood that there is no chemical treatment against that disease. Changing the queen helps.

.

Offline Finsky

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2007, 05:17:39 pm »


How are we affecting the health of the bees by feeding them something that gives an advantage to their diseases?



No, we don't. At least I am not that bad beekeeper. I offer to my bees the best quality of life. Nothing secunda or poor back to nature life.

The key word in nutrition is pollen, not sugar or honey.

Here is the  best knowledge about bees' nutrition
 http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/05-054.pdf

It is said there that pure sugar is the best after their honey.

And this is one of the best writings what I have met in Internet: Honey Bee Nutrition And Supplemental Feeding
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/bkCD/HBBiology/nutrition_supplements.htm

There are great differencies between plants of bees. That is why bees graze in different flowers.
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/01-047.pdf


In my country verb "nutrition" is missing totally from new bee books.


After newest reports the value of pollen had big meaning to nosema and wintering.
Bees' protein contend during winter and it's meaning to diseases is known  50 years.

.

Offline Cindi

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #15 on: October 27, 2007, 12:37:35 am »
Finsky, good sites and stored on my desktop for the winter days when I want to do some reading.  Great day, great life.  Cindi
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Offline randydrivesabus

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #16 on: October 28, 2007, 07:57:25 am »
i was thinking about the PH discussion in regards to sugar syrup v honey. i was under the impression that when you feed sugar syrup the bees change it into honey there by changing the PH as they do with nectar. it would then seem to me that feeding sugar syrup is no different than the bees foraging for nectar.

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #17 on: October 28, 2007, 09:33:04 am »
>i was under the impression that when you feed sugar syrup the bees change it into honey there by changing the PH as they do with nectar.

They invert some of the sugar, yes.  They dehydrate it, yes.   I don't believe they change the pH any.
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Offline Finsky

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #18 on: October 29, 2007, 10:40:47 am »

I stop this my discussion here, but I say that we feed bees in Finland with sugar 9 moths. I have not heard any proplems concerning with syrup/honey wintering. Some beed bees in the beginning of August. It is 10 month.

When I started nearly 50 years ago, inverting syrup was important to some. But propably it was only macig.

Beekeeping has enough real proplems. No need to pick them from air .

Offline qa33010

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Re: Organic chemical control of varroa
« Reply #19 on: October 29, 2007, 11:01:51 pm »
  Well I'm curious about what the bees need (other than get rid of the mites) to be healthy.  I've been trying to find his book and can't.  I understand that he has written another book but can't find that either.  I would like to get my meager knowledge on diet needs expanded more.  He does talk about the bees needing alkaline from external sources.  I had a link once, before computer crash, and can't find it.  Had some interesting info, but that was a day or two ago.  Here's what I have been able to find;

http://kulikoff.com/russianbees/page_14.html

I figure if the bees are healthy and bred for resistance that's part of it there.  Course I'm not known for being right.
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