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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • To: <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Formic Acid Treatment Update
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:25:29 -0400

Hey….

 

Bee buddy (Jerry Schoendorff) and I just completed what turned into a 10-day treatment with MiteAway Strips, two hives.  Each hive has two deeps, then a medium and a shallow.  We placed the strips between the two deeps on top of the frames.  There was a lot of cool weather (for June) and rain which often confined the bees to the hive.  I viewed this as a good thing. 

 

The first day there were a hundred or so dead bees on the “landing strip”.  After that, there were many days with more than the usual numbers of bees on the outside of the hive.  All in all, by Day 10, they tolerated the treatment very well.  Jerry and I were in the hive yesterday and they are both bustling, loaded with honey, capped brood were present, spotted the queen in one hive, all looked fine.  We did not do a sugar shake, the thought being, “why?”  So technically, I don’t know my mite count at this point, but it at least did not seem to harm the hives very much.

 

The “spent” strips came right out using the hive tool, and I did not detect any odor from them, all of the formic acid volatilized away.  I’ve disposed of them in the regular trash.  I’ve no plans to take any honey (except maybe some for personal consumption) until after the fall flow, which is beyond plenty of time to allow it to air out from this treatment.  I could probably take the honey now and use it…there was no odor whatsoever, it occurs naturally in honey, and it should be harmless to consume the honey anyway.  All-in-all, I am a fan of this treatment.  Will the potency hold-up long term given the selection process that just occurred in my hives?  Resistant mites survived, in all likelihood. Time will tell.

 

I am sending this information just so people who have not done this before can hopefully learn a bit from our experiences.

 

Tom Grizzle



  • [ocba] Formic Acid Treatment Update, Thomas Grizzle, 06/12/2013

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