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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Walter Starks <walterstarks AT icloud.com>
  • To: Rob Cook <crookkohler AT bellsouth.net>
  • Cc: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>, Jim Evans <jevans20 AT gmail.com>, Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] post-treatment testing
  • Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2016 17:18:00 -0400

I think MAQS would be a great option right now. Curious where you got the information about the mites licking up the Apiguard? Thymol is an irritant. Seems to me that any mites that eat it would be killed faster.

______

Walter


You never can tell with bees. ~ Winnie-the-Pooh

On Oct 27, 2016, at 5:05 PM, Rob Cook <crookkohler AT bellsouth.net> wrote:

So if you are not going to use the oxalic due to capped brood and apiguard is being licked off by the mites than what are the other options?

Rob Crook


On Monday, October 24, 2016 12:44 PM, John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com> wrote:


Jim,
Thanks for this. OCBA's hives at Carrboro High School were also treated with Apiguard his fall. The 10-day post-treatment sugar shake revealed one hive with a 2% residual mite load and the other with greater than 5%. The 5% concerns me and makes me question the efficacy of thymol. Perhaps this is the beginning of mite resistance to thymol.

Post-treatment testing is important.

John Rintoul
No trees or bees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.

On Oct 24, 2016, at 9:33 AM, Jim Evans <jevans20 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Good morning all,

I'll tag onto this message thread from several weeks ago.  I applied Apiguard from August 15 - September 15.  Yesterday, (10/23) I tested and found three of four hives absolutely infested with Varroa.  Weather should be good enough this week to treat with MAQS so will apply this afternoon.  For those of us who are trying to do the right things at the right times, the Varroa counts are very discouraging.

Hope others' colonies are faring better!

Jim Evans
jevans20 AT gmail.com
919-949-7362 (mobile)
919-913-1971 (office)


On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 5:29 PM, Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com> wrote:
Just an FYI...

Sorry to say, I'm often cavalier about pre- and/or post-treatment varroa testing. Procrastination was going to get the better of me this time too and I was going to forego my post-treatment check because "I know the treatment works." But I had a 1st Year Cluster member visiting my bee yard today so I decided to follow my own wise advice and do a post-treatment assessment.

I had treated in March this year with MAQS and with ApiGuard the previous fall.

I applied ApiGuard on August 23rd this year and re-applied (second dose) on September 6th. The full treatment course ended September 20th. I sampled today (Oct 1st). In the first hive I sampled, I found 11 mites (on 300 bees). In the second hive I had 13 mites. I figured that was enough (2 hives out of 10, consistent results) so didn't do any more sampling. I was shocked -- I was expecting the hives to test clean.

I refuse to go into winter with an 8% infestation rate (Sue Cobey math: N/300, then multiply by 2 to account for mites under cappings). I'll be retreating with something other than ApiGuard. My colonies still have lots of capped brood so oxalic acid isn't a good option. I have no idea why the ApiGuard failed or at least failed to impress... I followed the directions to the letter.

Just saying, that advice to do post-treatment checks isn't bad advice after all!

Randall



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