Formic is hard on the bees. Probably when you treated with OA it was too late. Keep up the close monitoring. Hope you get those pests under control. If you can catch some feral bees that can survive the mites you can start scaling back your treatment. I do lots of cutouts and swarm catches to build my resistant strains. Treating can get expensive until they can take care of themselves. Another thing I do is let them swarm to get their natural brood breaks. Don't get discouraged. Thanks!
Thanks, Rodney. Yes, I think I was too late with the OA. I’m back to catching swarms and cutouts to find survivor stock as you suggest. Although I only had first detection this spring(mid August), mites have now been in the area for 18months and it’s like a tsunami of reinfestation. If I find an established colony in a cavity somewhere I could be onto some good stock.
Don’t need a queen excluder on a horizontal hive. Brood will always be near the entrance and honey will be stored farther away from the entrance. You will never find the brood nest not together and unless you’re dropping empty frames into the brood nest during a hard fast flow on a healthy colony they will swarm before they fill the box. Not sure where your entrance is, but that’s why I usually put it on one end. I test for varroa twice a month and if I have counts above 5 i remove the queen to a resource hive and hit the original hive with OAV while broodless making the new queen!
Thanks. My entrance is at one end. Though, I have seen a friend’s LL with brood stretched in an elongated football shape over 22 frames. In mine, once I had two honey frames after the brood, she never crossed it. It’s easy to move capped frames on the other side of the honey and replace them with stickies or foundation. We’re finding that mite levels rapidly increase in a two week period. The official advice is monitoring every four weeks, but it’s too long. Two weeks is a minimum until levels stabilise. Almost constant treatments of one sort or another.
I'd recommend OAV every four days - 5 to 7 consecutive treatments. No way I'd fool with the varroa controller. If you can stand a brood break, go for it. Another option if you don't want to lock the queen down for 26 days is to freeze all brood and then OAV twice over 5 days. Treating in darkness gets you a higher kill rate.
Thanks, Phillip. Unfortunately, it won’t stop at 5-7 OA treatments. With our high reinfestation rates, mite counts are above threshold within a week. Eventually, things will level out when the number of mite bombs from feral hives and feral beekeepers minimises. That could take a few years. The Varroa Controller has been successfully used by many beekeepers as the only treatment in Europe for over 15 years. I’m interested to see how it performs in our unstable conditions.
Hey Dana, I describe the jars in Part4 of the series, but in short instead of a screened bottom board, I fitted the 3d printed lids to jar sized holes in the base just inside the entrance. The jars screw in from under the hive. The bees corral SHB through the perforated lids into the jars. I can access the jars without opening the hive and can see when they need emptying. It wasn’t intended for Varroa, which wasn’t in Australia at the time I built this LongLang. Mike
If it were me I would make sure to have a high quality OA vaporizer like an InstantVAP and keep the temp a little below 372°F? Maybe try 187°C would = 368.6°F? Just a thought if you want to sublime your OA without unintentionally creating formic acid and co2 out of the OA treatment during the process? I would also maybe consider mixing OA vaporization with something else like VarroxSan strips. In the CRC Handbook of chemistry and physics, upon heating oxalic acid, the water of hydration boils off first, then at 315°F the oxalic acid starts to sublime (goes directly from solid to vapor), and at 372°F and above any oxalic acid which has not yet sublimed decomposes and turns into formic acid and carbon monoxide gas. If your temps where that high in c not f you are probably dosing them with some formic acid and co2. As you are aware formic acid does work on varroa mites, but it can also negatively affect the bees themselves, particularly the brood if not applied correctly, or you get an unintentional high dose. Potentially causing increased brood mortality and impacting colony development, again depending on dosage and environmental conditions outside temps and inside hive temps, I'm sure most of you whom have accidentally overdosed a colony with formic know what I am talking about. I would recommend avoiding cheap Chinese OA spoons because you just don't know what temps it's getting up to and you could be doing more harm using them, and you are taking a guess on OA temps for the treatment. If you do use OA treatment spoons I would suggest using an infrared therm on it first to see the high end of the temp in a controlled environment. In my yards I'm doing a mix of weekly OA vap at 2grams per deep combined with Varroxsan strips, before and after flows, it works well. I don't do mite checks often anymore, I just assume they all have them and treat equally. Of course I do visual inspections while in the hives for varroa, and I check the bottom boards while doing my inspections.
Thanks for your thorough and informative comment. I’m using the new InstantVap. When I modified it to work with my batteries, I saw the quality of build. From the stainless steel construction to the beautiful electronics (my original trade), I knew I bought the right device. It’s a breeze to use, no temperature adjustment, calibrated at the factory. Very easy to use, it’s a well thought out design. Until mite levels settle down, I intend to use the Varroa Controller plus OA sublimation. AluenCAP OA strips is currently going through registration, hopefully available in time for spring.
@@AussieMikesBees Yeah, sorry for the long novel I wrote, yeah the instantvap is a good quality OA tool and I like that you can play with the temps as needed, the varroa controller is also a great new'ish tool in the varroa fight. I forget that not all treatments are available in all locations, my apologies. Hopefully A Cap gets approved for you all soon, I imagine it will. well good video and channel! :)
I will probably wait till varroa is settled down a bit more before i try having bees again. My top bar crew absconded but i think i was too late getting treatment started due to other things happening.
I hear you Robert. This high reinfestation period is labour intensive. Close to constant treatments of one sort or another. I know a lot of beeks who’ve quit altogether or waiting for things to stabilise.
Thanks, Brett. I’ve read about Varroxsan and it looks very good. It’s not going through our registration process, but a competing product from Argentina, Aluen CAP is close to gaining an emergency permit in time for spring. I spoke with the manufacturer at Apimondia in Chile and am impressed by the data. When used correctly it has 95% efficacy. Mike
@ Thanks greatly for your reply. How would I send pictures to you? A couple more questions, if I may; Do you still advocate for entrances on the end? Do the Guardian entrances work? Tia.
You're welcome. You can email pics to mike@aussiemikesbees.com I like the end entrance. In my opinion it is easier management. The brood is always near that entrance and the honey at the far end. I don't run multiple colonies in the one hive, so I don't need extra entrances. Until I found varroa, my thoughts were the Guardian Entrance works. But since varroa, SHB has been going nuts throughout the state. I just inspected the Long Lang this afternoon and found loads of SHB. The bees were keeping them under control, but they shouldn't be there at all. The other side of that is, would there be even more without the Guardian Entrance?
Yes. I think she may have put the strip in the top box for the frame of brood there. In any case, I’ll be cycling all the frames out as soon as a good flow allows it.
Just discovering this channel right now. Looks and sounds like you guys are making the same mistake most American beekeepers made years ago by relying on the treatment treadmill. Entire videos about pests and the futility of "fighting" them.
It does seem that way. The official line is Integrated Pest Management where the chemicals are the last resort, but it’s the first thing they go to. The scientists and breeders had a pow wow to work out a program to develop resistant stock, but that will take time. We can’t import queens or semen in case we consequentially import viruses. No DWV here yet. The suspicion is that it was illegal queen imports that brought mites in. I’d like to see a Randy Oliver breeding program instead of focussing on individual traits, but they seem hell bent on selecting specific behaviours. There is a movement, the Varroa Warriors with a mission to rear bees without chemicals. They’ve had some excellent presenters offering alternative methods. But with a pollination industry demanding bees for their crops and commercial beekeepers struggling to stay afloat with all time low honey prices, they’re going for the short term fastest, cheapest solution - Oxalic acid. There are more hobby beekeepers, but there are many more commercial hives, so yes I think we’ll continue the mistakes made in the US and Europe and the treadmill will keep going nowhere fast.
@AussieMikesBees it's crazy that the worry about DWV stops them from importing survival stock. It's like turning down food when you're starving because it's high in cholesterol or something. In my case, no sign of DWV was found in any of my 72 colonies this season (by the USDA inspector) and I've never treated since I started in 2010. At least you recognize the pointlessness of it all, rather than defending it. I can respect that.
Thanks for sharing.
thank you for sharing
Thanks, for watching.
Missed your videos Mike.👍
Thanks, I’ll be more productive this year.
Formic is hard on the bees. Probably when you treated with OA it was too late. Keep up the close monitoring. Hope you get those pests under control. If you can catch some feral bees that can survive the mites you can start scaling back your treatment. I do lots of cutouts and swarm catches to build my resistant strains. Treating can get expensive until they can take care of themselves. Another thing I do is let them swarm to get their natural brood breaks. Don't get discouraged. Thanks!
Thanks, Rodney. Yes, I think I was too late with the OA. I’m back to catching swarms and cutouts to find survivor stock as you suggest. Although I only had first detection this spring(mid August), mites have now been in the area for 18months and it’s like a tsunami of reinfestation. If I find an established colony in a cavity somewhere I could be onto some good stock.
Don’t need a queen excluder on a horizontal hive. Brood will always be near the entrance and honey will be stored farther away from the entrance. You will never find the brood nest not together and unless you’re dropping empty frames into the brood nest during a hard fast flow on a healthy colony they will swarm before they fill the box. Not sure where your entrance is, but that’s why I usually put it on one end. I test for varroa twice a month and if I have counts above 5 i remove the queen to a resource hive and hit the original hive with OAV while broodless making the new queen!
Thanks. My entrance is at one end. Though, I have seen a friend’s LL with brood stretched in an elongated football shape over 22 frames. In mine, once I had two honey frames after the brood, she never crossed it. It’s easy to move capped frames on the other side of the honey and replace them with stickies or foundation.
We’re finding that mite levels rapidly increase in a two week period. The official advice is monitoring every four weeks, but it’s too long. Two weeks is a minimum until levels stabilise. Almost constant treatments of one sort or another.
I'd recommend OAV every four days - 5 to 7 consecutive treatments. No way I'd fool with the varroa controller. If you can stand a brood break, go for it. Another option if you don't want to lock the queen down for 26 days is to freeze all brood and then OAV twice over 5 days. Treating in darkness gets you a higher kill rate.
Thanks, Phillip. Unfortunately, it won’t stop at 5-7 OA treatments. With our high reinfestation rates, mite counts are above threshold within a week. Eventually, things will level out when the number of mite bombs from feral hives and feral beekeepers minimises. That could take a few years.
The Varroa Controller has been successfully used by many beekeepers as the only treatment in Europe for over 15 years. I’m interested to see how it performs in our unstable conditions.
Thank you for sharing such a detailed video. What is the logic behind the printed lids for the jars? Why/how do the mites wind up in the jars?
Hey Dana,
I describe the jars in Part4 of the series, but in short instead of a screened bottom board, I fitted the 3d printed lids to jar sized holes in the base just inside the entrance. The jars screw in from under the hive. The bees corral SHB through the perforated lids into the jars. I can access the jars without opening the hive and can see when they need emptying. It wasn’t intended for Varroa, which wasn’t in Australia at the time I built this LongLang.
Mike
👍👍
If it were me I would make sure to have a high quality OA vaporizer like an InstantVAP and keep the temp a little below 372°F? Maybe try 187°C would = 368.6°F? Just a thought if you want to sublime your OA without unintentionally creating formic acid and co2 out of the OA treatment during the process? I would also maybe consider mixing OA vaporization with something else like VarroxSan strips.
In the CRC Handbook of chemistry and physics, upon heating oxalic acid, the water of hydration boils off first, then at 315°F the oxalic acid starts to sublime (goes directly from solid to vapor), and at 372°F and above any oxalic acid which has not yet sublimed decomposes and turns into formic acid and carbon monoxide gas. If your temps where that high in c not f you are probably dosing them with some formic acid and co2.
As you are aware formic acid does work on varroa mites, but it can also negatively affect the bees themselves, particularly the brood if not applied correctly, or you get an unintentional high dose. Potentially causing increased brood mortality and impacting colony development, again depending on dosage and environmental conditions outside temps and inside hive temps, I'm sure most of you whom have accidentally overdosed a colony with formic know what I am talking about. I would recommend avoiding cheap Chinese OA spoons because you just don't know what temps it's getting up to and you could be doing more harm using them, and you are taking a guess on OA temps for the treatment. If you do use OA treatment spoons I would suggest using an infrared therm on it first to see the high end of the temp in a controlled environment.
In my yards I'm doing a mix of weekly OA vap at 2grams per deep combined with Varroxsan strips, before and after flows, it works well. I don't do mite checks often anymore, I just assume they all have them and treat equally. Of course I do visual inspections while in the hives for varroa, and I check the bottom boards while doing my inspections.
Thanks for your thorough and informative comment. I’m using the new InstantVap. When I modified it to work with my batteries, I saw the quality of build. From the stainless steel construction to the beautiful electronics (my original trade), I knew I bought the right device. It’s a breeze to use, no temperature adjustment, calibrated at the factory. Very easy to use, it’s a well thought out design.
Until mite levels settle down, I intend to use the Varroa Controller plus OA sublimation. AluenCAP OA strips is currently going through registration, hopefully available in time for spring.
@@AussieMikesBees Yeah, sorry for the long novel I wrote, yeah the instantvap is a good quality OA tool and I like that you can play with the temps as needed, the varroa controller is also a great new'ish tool in the varroa fight.
I forget that not all treatments are available in all locations, my apologies. Hopefully A Cap gets approved for you all soon, I imagine it will. well good video and channel! :)
Don’t apologise. I appreciate informed detail. It’s those that write a few dismissive words with no further explanation that I have no time for.
I will probably wait till varroa is settled down a bit more before i try having bees again. My top bar crew absconded but i think i was too late getting treatment started due to other things happening.
I hear you Robert. This high reinfestation period is labour intensive. Close to constant treatments of one sort or another. I know a lot of beeks who’ve quit altogether or waiting for things to stabilise.
Varroxsan is it new in usa looks like it could be a bloody 🥇 winner use it any time and even in honey boxes worth a look.😮
Thanks, Brett. I’ve read about Varroxsan and it looks very good. It’s not going through our registration process, but a competing product from Argentina, Aluen CAP is close to gaining an emergency permit in time for spring. I spoke with the manufacturer at Apimondia in Chile and am impressed by the data. When used correctly it has 95% efficacy.
Mike
Want to build one like yours. Are the plans available to copy?
Thanks greatly for this series.
Looking back realize that I have to follow diagrams in part 2, to allow for different materials 🤭
Thanks for watching. I didn’t draw up plans, just followed the path from the frames onward. I’d like to see pics of your build. Cheers, Mike
@ Thanks greatly for your reply.
How would I send pictures to you?
A couple more questions, if I may;
Do you still advocate for entrances on the end?
Do the Guardian entrances work?
Tia.
You're welcome. You can email pics to mike@aussiemikesbees.com
I like the end entrance. In my opinion it is easier management. The brood is always near that entrance and the honey at the far end. I don't run multiple colonies in the one hive, so I don't need extra entrances.
Until I found varroa, my thoughts were the Guardian Entrance works. But since varroa, SHB has been going nuts throughout the state. I just inspected the Long Lang this afternoon and found loads of SHB. The bees were keeping them under control, but they shouldn't be there at all. The other side of that is, would there be even more without the Guardian Entrance?
@@AussieMikesBees Thank you very much.
Do the jars for capture near the entrances work?
Shouldn’t have bayvarol strips on honey frames only the brood
Yes. I think she may have put the strip in the top box for the frame of brood there. In any case, I’ll be cycling all the frames out as soon as a good flow allows it.
Just discovering this channel right now. Looks and sounds like you guys are making the same mistake most American beekeepers made years ago by relying on the treatment treadmill. Entire videos about pests and the futility of "fighting" them.
It does seem that way. The official line is Integrated Pest Management where the chemicals are the last resort, but it’s the first thing they go to. The scientists and breeders had a pow wow to work out a program to develop resistant stock, but that will take time. We can’t import queens or semen in case we consequentially import viruses. No DWV here yet. The suspicion is that it was illegal queen imports that brought mites in. I’d like to see a Randy Oliver breeding program instead of focussing on individual traits, but they seem hell bent on selecting specific behaviours.
There is a movement, the Varroa Warriors with a mission to rear bees without chemicals. They’ve had some excellent presenters offering alternative methods.
But with a pollination industry demanding bees for their crops and commercial beekeepers struggling to stay afloat with all time low honey prices, they’re going for the short term fastest, cheapest solution - Oxalic acid. There are more hobby beekeepers, but there are many more commercial hives, so yes I think we’ll continue the mistakes made in the US and Europe and the treadmill will keep going nowhere fast.
@AussieMikesBees it's crazy that the worry about DWV stops them from importing survival stock. It's like turning down food when you're starving because it's high in cholesterol or something. In my case, no sign of DWV was found in any of my 72 colonies this season (by the USDA inspector) and I've never treated since I started in 2010. At least you recognize the pointlessness of it all, rather than defending it. I can respect that.