ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
List archive
- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: Mike Johnson <mm AT reddrum.com>
- Cc: Orange County Beekeepers <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Yikes!
- Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2016 17:07:30 -0500
Mike,
I don't want to have honey on the hive during any of the treatments if that honey is intended for market. That isn't because the commonly-preferred treatments (thymol-based [ApiGuard or ApiLife Var], formic acid [MiteAway Quick Strips] or oxalic acid) would be harmful to people -- they are in honey naturally anyway, just at much lower concentrations. It is because it is possible for them to give the honey an "off" taste. Some of the treatment routines take several weeks (the thymol ones), some a week (MAQS) and some one day (oxalic acid). Read the label directions carefully with respect to time before/after putting on supers, and add a dose of common sense on top of that. For example, MAQS says that you can legally treat while supers are on, but I wouldn't do that because I don't want to take the chance of getting honey with an added zing, even though that chance is probably very small due to the dissipation rate of the formic acid. But treating before supers go on is perfectly fine. With respect to your specific situation, a very good option if you have loads of extra honey left over from the fall is to remove it, freeze the frames for a few days, then store them in an air-tight, moth-tight bin until the summer dearth. Then give them back to the bees. Usually fall honey is aster and goldenrod, which most folks don't like, or is "sugar water honey", which isn't honey at all and shouldn't be called that. All of that "honey" is great for the bees but not for the market. A couple of short articles that talk about treatments are "How Might We Smite Mites?" and "What's the Deal with Oxalic Acid?". Also, the Honey Bee Health Coalition <here> has published an EXCELLENT free pdf book, "Tools for Varroa Management", which provides a comprehensive survey of assessment techniques and treatments. Each treatment is described in terms of how to apply, efficacy and advantages/disadvantages. Randall On 3/12/2016 4:23 PM, Mike Johnson wrote: 56E488C4.6040805 AT reddrum.com" type="cite"> Despite reading and hearing about varroa since I started bee keeping four years ago I did not fully grasp how serious they are until this past winter when I read The Beekeeper's Lament. http://www.amazon.com/Beekeepers-Lament-Billion-Honey-America/dp/006187325X/ |
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[ocba] Yikes!,
Randall Austin, 03/12/2016
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Re: [ocba] Yikes!,
Mike Johnson, 03/12/2016
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Re: [ocba] Yikes!,
Randall Austin, 03/12/2016
- Re: [ocba] Yikes!, Lori Kroothoep, 03/12/2016
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Re: [ocba] Yikes!,
Randall Austin, 03/12/2016
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Re: [ocba] Yikes!,
Mike Johnson, 03/12/2016
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