Oxalic and glycerine

[M4tt 4,941]

1 minute ago, Alastair said:

Course i'm just a beginner at this, but M4tt i don't think there is a lot of bee traffic over those strips, me, I'd feel better with them moved in a bit.

 

Others more knowledgeable than i may comment with better info though.

That’s why I put the pic there . It speaks 1000 words and is sparks interpretation and comments .

 

This is the very end of treatment . That box has 8 frames of eggs and brood with one newly drawn frame in the middle . That shows the growth of the brood nest over time . Of course , the staples did not start out that far down the frames in August . 

This time , all staples have been just touching the outside of the brood nest and I’ve moved them weekly to the other end of the frame . There has been zero brood damage . 

5 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

@M4tt

 would you put more strips in in late summer after the flow ?

Varroa numbers build up more during summer with brood production I think .

 

Absolutely

How do I know there are no varroa in hives ?
 

Most hives have a lot of drone brood between box one and two and they are all pearly white and clean of varroa . 

[Pinnacle 521]

Matt the question is whether they’ll stay that way.

 

my plan is to maintain OA strips until the flow, to ensure hives are clean to the last minute. Remove them for the flow then immediately put new ones in at harvest.

 

for us that means no strips in hive from late nov/early dec through to mid/late feb, depending on site.

 

not saying at all that this is the beat way to approach it - just my plan at this point

[M4tt 4,941]

29 minutes ago, Pinnacle said:

the question is whether they’ll stay that way.

That’s why I’m ‘pushing the boundaries ‘ to find out

[CHCHPaul 473]

I’m struggling with the idea that the staples are taking up important space in my single FD brood box setups. I need all the room for brood and yet the remove all the wax from behind and in front of each staple. And I use half widths. 
 

The photo is more for interest than science as I don’t have any of frame damage... that’s my cell raiser and I removed the staples from near the cells. 

This was taken just after the grafting session!

 

 

[M4tt 4,941]

1 minute ago, CHCHPaul said:

they remove all the wax from behind and in front of each staple.

I don’t get any of that by placing staples  the way I have this time . No wax chewed , almost no staples chewed , no brood interference , no mites

[CHCHPaul 473]

2 minutes ago, M4tt said:

I don’t get any of that by placing staples  the way I have this time . No wax chewed , almost no staples chewed , no brood interference , no mites

interesting because I thought I was placing staples like you  Do you fold them once or twice! (Like a staple)

Edited October 18, 2019 by CHCHPaul
More info

[M4tt 4,941]

6 minutes ago, CHCHPaul said:

interesting because I thought I was placing staples like you  Do you fold them once or twice! (Like a staple)

Same as you .

That hive looks incredibly strong . Perhaps they are mining the wax because of that 

[Philbee 4,675]

1 hour ago, M4tt said:

Same as you .

That hive looks incredibly strong . Perhaps they are mining the wax because of that 

Lol
Na, this Hive is strong and the Queen is laying under the staple

Edit

Two different Hives

[Gavin Smith 446]

On 18/10/2019 at 6:00 PM, Philbee said:

Lol
Na, this Hive is strong and the Queen is laying under the staple

Edit

Two different Hives

well that was a conversation killer

 

[kaihoka 2,975]

Is it possible that some bees react better to the OA strips than others .

There is a lot of different genetics out there.

 No one  has mentioned that yet so it may not be an issue .

[Philbee 4,675]

Today was a milestone in my understanding and conviction that Varroa are not killing our Hives.

At the conference I spoke with one of our leading Varroa scientist and he was taken back and probably disbelieving when I made the claim that 6 Varroa per 300 Bees in an Autumn Hive was nothing to worry about.
What I know now but didn't know then was that Id made a huge understatement

The fact is that 80 mites per 380 Bees is no big deal in Autumn IF  the Hives concerned are somehow different than the Norm.

Its now a matter of deciding what that difference is rather than what the actual tolerable level of mites actually is.

What Ive just stated is now a matter of fact, what isnt a well understood is the nature of the difference of these tolerant Hives.

One possible point of difference id rule out immediately is breeding.

 

 

The site that demonstrated today's revelations had so many Autumn mites compared to other trial sites that the Mites could only be arriving from a direction other than from other trial and generally monitored sites belonging to me.
As it happens a large corporate and others are within fly distance.

This trial site is known as site 3 and there are probably a couple of forum followers who have a copy of my trial date and will already know about site 3.

 

Three of the worst hives in site 3 had mite counts of 85/260,  80/380,    60/ 300,   April/May

All other hives had high loads also, the percentages being 5%, 32.7%, 20%,11.85%,13%,10%.

Two hives died over winter,

One when I killed the queen late in the trial and one of the lower count controls decided to dwindle to a current state of near death. 

The rest are going well and Ill attach a photo of three with the highest Autumn counts.

In each of the photos is shown the Autumn counts and todays counts.

Note Ive made a typo on the white board dates, its a day out.
 

 

 

 

And another that expanded well in a damp site with 4 staples 

Didn't do a count'today  but it was 14/300 in April

[tommy dave 1,184]

51 minutes ago, Philbee said:

Today was a milestone in my understanding and conviction that Varroa are not killing our Hives.

At the conference I spoke with one of our leading Varroa scientist and he was taken back and probably disbelieving when I made the claim that 6 Varroa per 300 Bees in an Autumn Hive was nothing to worry about.
What I know now but didn't know then was that Id made a huge understatement

The fact is that 80 mites per 380 Bees is no big deal in Autumn IF  the Hives concerned are somehow different than the Norm.

Its now a matter of deciding what that difference is rather than what the actual tolerable level of mites actually is.

What Ive just stated is now a matter of fact, what isnt a well understood is the nature of the difference of these tolerant Hives.

One possible point of difference id rule out immediately is breeding.

My impression based on how well my "maybe varroa resistant" test hive over-wintered, and a few other hives over the last few years is that hives overwintered with plenty of honey on are able to survive varroa load a lot longer than those without - might be something to do with the varroa pressure taking a lot longer to hit home in a hive that isn't also experiencing feed pressure? Maybe due to less feast/famine and energy expenditure than in hives dealing with occasional syrup feeding?

 

There are plenty on here with sample sizes that are meaningful rather than just my anecdotal observations though, it might be nothing.

[Philbee 4,675]

2 minutes ago, tommy dave said:

My impression based on how well my "maybe varroa resistant" test hive over-wintered, and a few other hives over the last few years is that hives overwintered with plenty of honey on are able to survive varroa load a lot longer than those without - might be something to do with the varroa pressure taking a lot longer to hit home in a hive that isn't also experiencing feed pressure? Maybe due to less feast/famine and energy expenditure than in hives dealing with occasional syrup feeding?

 

There are plenty on here with sample sizes that are meaningful rather than just my anecdotal observations though, it might be nothing.

Nutrition is a fundamental and all my Hives have relatively good nutrition given that Honey Bees did not evolve here.

I believe its important that a trial of any sort should be based on good fundamentals because that will produce fundamentally sound results.

As an example a Manuka Beek has said to me on numerous occasions, "Phillip your Hives are not real Hives because they are permanent and thats why they look like they do, our Hives work hard and get shifted around.": 
My reply is, "So your Hives are crook because of the way you manage them"
 

[Alastair 8,627]

1 hour ago, Philbee said:

Three of the worst hives in site 3 had mite counts of 85/260,  80/380,    60/ 300,   April/May

All other hives had high loads also, the percentages being 5%, 32.7%, 20%,11.85%,13%,10%.

 

Did you let the hives go into winter with those numbers, or did you treat them at that time?

 

Also when had they last been treated prior?

[Philbee 4,675]

24 minutes ago, Alastair said:

 

Did you let the hives go into winter with those numbers, or did you treat them at that time?

 

Also when had they last been treated prior?

The trial Hives were treated on the 6th April and most of the controls were treated a month later although 6 controls were treated about  6th june and I notice today that one of these late treated control hives died.
Interestingly this dead control didnt have a high count

 

All the trial Hives were previously treated in August ( approx 7 months prior)

Edited October 25, 2019 by Philbee

[Alastair 8,627]

So from your paperwork it looks like you put one round of staples in autumn, and left them in all winter?

[Philbee 4,675]

7 hours ago, Alastair said:

So from your paperwork it looks like you put one round of staples in autumn, and left them in all winter?

Yes thats correct.

These are part of an efficacy trial and the idea is to stack the odds against the Staple in order to find its limits

Same goes for the spring section of the trial.
This is important because when the time comes to write instructions for use it is most likely that we will pull well back from the limits to a point that is deemed prudent.
 

As a side note here are two comparison photos of that nice spring single

One photo in Autumn and one in spring.
Damp Shaded  site that arguably produced the poorest efficacy/effectiveness results in Autumn trial.

This single received the standard trial dose for a single.

[Alastair 8,627]

Thanks, I'm already thinking about the autumn treatment. So it's looking like just put one batch of strips in and forget about it till spring?

 

Don't have to answer, but only if you don't mind, what % winter losses have you had across your whole outfit?

Edited October 25, 2019 by Alastair

[Jamo 534]

In my opperation of approx 500 hives I have maybe 8 hives that moved away from their synthetic strips over winter and became heavily infected. These hives all got boosted with additional healthy brood and treatment with bayverol back in August. Since then they have all had extra brood injections and since end of Sep have had apivar treatment go in but some are still struggling with mites.

It seams that it is now much much harder to get on top of heavy mite loads with synthetic strips.

So my question to Phil is do ox gl staples have a faster knockdown that synthetics?

I know that formic would maybe better in these situations and after this year am wondering seriously if petrol would be better for this type of hive.

 

[Ted 404]

11 minutes ago, Jamo said:

know that formic would maybe better in these situations and after this year am wondering seriously if petrol would be better for this type of hive.

After years of intensive monitoring and research I can confidently advise you that petrol will eliminate 100% of your mite problems!!  Now that the secret is out I expect to see a rush of beekeepers lining up at their local service station filling their sugar tanks with petrol to once and for all eliminate varroa from their operations.

[dansar 5,524]

14 minutes ago, Jamo said:

In my opperation of approx 500 hives I have maybe 8 hives that moved away from their synthetic strips over winter and became heavily infected. These hives all got boosted with additional healthy brood and treatment with bayverol back in August. Since then they have all had extra brood injections and since end of Sep have had apivar treatment go in but some are still struggling with mites.

It seams that it is now much much harder to get on top of heavy mite loads with synthetic strips.

So my question to Phil is do ox gl staples have a faster knockdown that synthetics?

I know that formic would maybe better in these situations and after this year am wondering seriously if petrol would be better for this type of hive.

 

My experience is if it’s a heavy mite load the Oxalic won’t help.

But having said that, since the Synthetic treatments aren’t helping either it may be a option to carry on as you were by supporting the varroa hive with regular addition of healthy brood and nurse bees while the oxalic/gly strips are in. I haven’t had the chance to try it this way as I started with these strips last autumn so hives were reducing brood. It might just work

[Alastair 8,627]

Jamo if both bayvarol and apivar have not done the job, got to wonder if you are placing the strips correctly and for long enough? The strips must be placed right through the middle of the brood, not to one edge of it.

 

I know that may sound basic but yet, it is amazing how many peoples hives I look at when the treatment failed, and the strips were placed wrong.

[Jamo 534]

2 minutes ago, Alastair said:

Jamo if both bayvarol and apivar have not done the job, got to wonder if you are placing the strips correctly and for long enough? The strips must be placed right through the middle of the brood, not to one edge of it.

 

I know that may sound basic but yet, it is amazing how many peoples hives I look at when the treatment failed, and the strips were placed wrong.

The strips have worked fine in the other 99% of my hives. It's just the few hives where the mites got out of control that are the issue. Seams to be taking a lot more effort to get under control. Some of these hives have had 12 - 15 frames of good brood added over the spring but are still only a box of bees.

[Philbee 4,675]

57 minutes ago, Alastair said:

Thanks, I'm already thinking about the autumn treatment. So it's looking like just put one batch of strips in and forget about it till spring?

 

Don't have to answer, but only if you don't mind, what % winter losses have you had across your whole outfit?

Firstly, You must make your decisions based on your own experience and situation. 

 

My total winter loses are yet to be properly counted but can say with reasonable certainty that my winter Varroa loses are negligible.
Ive lost a decent number of hives to stock damage, one site losing 15 hives to a mob of stags

3 other sites had some loses to cattle and so far Ive found 2 drone layers etc and Im bound to find random dead hives.
Of the approx 42 hives in my trial I have lost 4 over winter, one of which I accidentally killed the queen late in the trial, 2 were late treated controls, and one drone layer.

I also killed one control at week 4 because it had a mite count around 100 and feared it would contaminate the trial, however I regret killing it as in hindsight it would probably  have been ok.

 

One of those dead controls isnt actually dead yet but probably will die

Edited October 25, 2019 by Philbee

[Alastair 8,627]

Thanks Phil.

 

12 minutes ago, Jamo said:

The strips have worked fine in the other 99% of my hives. It's just the few hives where the mites got out of control that are the issue. Seams to be taking a lot more effort to get under control. Some of these hives have had 12 - 15 frames of good brood added over the spring but are still only a box of bees.

 

Might be you got a dwindling disease, something i had in an apiary a couple of years ago. Most of the hives were fine but a small number got real weak. Could not see anything wrong with them but they just got weaker and weaker. I boosted them with brood several times but they would just continue to get weaker, put new queens in some and that didn't work either. 

 

In the end i decided not to throw more good brood after bad and let these hives fight their own battles, and they just dwindled away and eventually died. I kept the frames in storage for a season hoping any pathogens would die then re used in the same apiary. All seems to be fine now, no more issues.