Apiguard mistake - need advise please

[beeliever]

I'm a newbie and forgot to check with my mentor first {embarrassed}.
I saw some red mites and grabbed 1 pack apiguard and placed in 1 hive for about 12-15 hours total.

 the hive was previously weak anyway bc I had just split it and took too much honey racks out. So I was syrup feeding to get them back to strength when I saw the red mites. W/O thinnking I just grabbed the apiguard (about 2:30pm) and put it in there but early the next morning started realizing my mistake and removed it as early as 8:30 am. What are all my alternatives 2 days later to save honey? Is it  all damaged honey for human consumption after only that brief amount of exposure?
{sob} :'(

[AllenF]

I would not take chances with the honey.   Leave it and count it as lost.  But it was not honey if you were feeding them.   You do not feed to get honey, you feed to get them to grow.   Did you have honey supers on?   Never feed with honey supers on, you will just harvest sugar water.  Leave it for the bees, and mark the frames as treated now. 

[Kathyp]

i'm not sure why you'd be thinking about taking honey from a weak hive?  but yes, that honey that you have exposed should not be consumed by people.  it's not that  thimerosal is particularly harmful in small amounts; it's in things like mouthwash, but the honey would be considered contaminated by any standards i know.

[beeliever]

So just mark the racks that have "sugar feed" on them? I fed themn for only 1 week bc it appeared as if the new brrod was weak and dying before able to go out and forage. Heads peeping out of cell but croaked bees.
So I noticed nothing other than 2 red mites on the outside of the hive and pretty low amt of honey for feed in the hive so I presumed that we must have taken too much honey for the new queen split and started feeding sugar water. The hive activity perked right up. But just after that (3-4 days) is when I made the mistake of adding the apiguard. If there was only enough in there that it is being used to feed the bees at this point.... :?

[AllenF]

First, we don't know your location so I am wondering if the red things you are seeing may be chiggers.   Mite are not the easiest things to see.  And mark your frames treated, that way you will never use them for honey ever again. 

[beeliever]

Will do! Thank you all so much!

[carlfaba10t]

 Hey Allenf ,do youall got chiggers down there? :-D

[indypartridge]

Seeing mites doesn't mean you need to treat. Nearly every colony will have some mites; the important question is "how many?". The idea behind Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is that you treat only when there's a problem.

[cdanderson]

When I first started beekeeping, I did things like that.  See something in the bee yard, react (or over react  :shock:).  Get back to the house and think " Oh my, what have I done ?!"  Its just part of the learning process.

[AllenF]

Ya, we got chiggers.   Tons of them.  They give you a good excuse to scratch when and where you are not suppose to.   :-D

[tandemrx]

Just to clarify, apigard doesn't contain thimerosal (the common organomercury preservative found in a variety of pharmaceuticals and used to be applied topically to wounds).

I think the word Kathy was looking for here was thymol.

i'm not sure why you'd be thinking about taking honey from a weak hive?  but yes, that honey that you have exposed should not be consumed by people.  it's not that  thimerosal is particularly harmful in small amounts; it's in things like mouthwash, but the honey would be considered contaminated by any standards i know.

[Kathyp]

thymol.

you are right.  brain fart, or caffeine deficit, or something....

or dirty contacts.

[beeliever]

Y'all are so great. You're right, it was a chigger bc after that I worked in my garden and they jumped on me  :-x  :-P No fun. And I did over react. everything is looking good now and I took out all theframes that didn't have honey or wax on them and marked the few (3) that do. I was feeding them bc when I had slit the hive I think I took almost all the honey and the babies were croaking before they could come out of their cells. Heads out but  :-P

[deknow]

Ya, we got chiggers.   Tons of them.  They give you a good excuse to scratch when and where you are not suppose to.   :-D

I tried that...she said, "Excuse me, what makes you think I'm itching there?"
deknow

[AllenF]

 :lau: