Treating with OAV every five days is a waste of time if you want to decrease the mite population. OAV is only active in a hive for about 2-3 days with large a decrease by day three. Treating that far apart only targets the phoretic mites which compromises about 20% of the infestation in a hive and give the mite population time to rebound as the next generation continues it's life cycle. In other words by treating every five days with an effective lethal time of two days there would only be about 40% kill rate on the total mite population in the hive. Decreasing the time interval to every third day not only hits the phoretic mites but also provides a continuous exposure to the matriarchal or breeder mites which move from brood cell to brood cell over a period of 30 hours. Since the breeder mites make up 80% of the mite population a treatment schedule of every third day will drastically improve the overall mite kill rate by targeting the breeders as they move. I have found that treating every third day for a total of eight treatments will pretty much eradicate mites even in a heavily infested hive. Performing a treatment every third day for eight treatments totals 24 days which is two complete mite life cycles and has shown to be the most effective in my yard. Targeting the mites using their breeding cycle works better than targeting them using the honeybee breeding cycle although they are intermixed. Over the last 20 years as a bee keeper I've realized that "control" is not the objective when dealing with mites. It's either eradication of the mites or they will eradicate the hive they infest. It's a war and needs to be treated as such. Thanks for your research and work against the Varroa Destructor mite.
I just commented to Bob about looking at treating every four days, then every three days and see if that works to drop the levels of mites. My concern would be damage to the queen? Any issues on your end with seeing this?
Cage the Queen for 24 or 28 days... treat with trickle OA on day 24... 90plus efficacy.. why bcos the mites will only be on the bees as there is no more available brood. Trickle OA lasts for approximately 10days.. so in this time your bees are exposed as are the mites. Best time to do it a month before the making of the winter bees
I would like to add to that, would it be more effective if you treated at night so all the foragers bees are inside and treating in a dearth so the brood is low?
Glad that you’re doing another series on this, Bob. Good stuff. Personally, I did a 4x 4-day interval mid-December series with 4g/deep and monitored drop counts. Most appeared to not be broodless because the mites continued falling with each application. Though they all looked pretty clean after the 4th application. OAV is useful, but fickle - especially with brood present.
Hi Bob from Greece. In the summer with brood we do every three days at 270 C and not every 4 days with 100% efficiency after 6 times. It is wrong in the summer to do brood every 4 days
It’ll be interesting to see what the larger dosages did. Bob, thanks a ton for doing this, both the videos, and furnishing the resources to help make the research possible.
The best treatment against varroa is monitoring,when beekeepers realize it things will get better and better for beekeeping 🐝 I use oxalic acid strips with glucerin when brood is present OAV on winter broodless periods 3g every 7 days for 21days (3 times totally) Brood breaks in spring time when i create nucs with sealed brood from donor colonies (90%of varroa is trapped inside the brood) and i introduce a queen cell,creating pherotic mites before the new brood get sealed and i use oav or oa dribble. I try to keep my alcohol washes below 3% all year round using always organic treatments because bee products must be as clean as we can.
I really like the combination of these two, really great explanations but in a way that us humble beekeepers can follow and grasp. Thanks Bob, looking forward to more.
Thanks Bob for this reaserch! I"ll wait the next parts of the study with 2g and 3 g of oxalic per hive and the interval of repeted trataments must be 3 or maximum 4 days. I am from Roumania and I also use oxalic vaporization because I want to reduce the use pf chemical trataments! Good luck!
14 mixed size hives here in Northern Alabama. Nothing but OA vapor used in 2021. Double doses used. No alcohol wash counts done. No treatments done all summer. All colonies treated right before dark in the evening from the bottom board. Started treating in August....6 treatments 5 days apart = only fair mite drops observed. Repeated steps in October with similar results....hives were working goldenrod during most of this and looked extremely healthy at this point, but I wasn't satisfied with my mite drops yet. I drilled the rear top box on every colony just low enough to clear the top bars on the frames. I did 3 more treatment around Thankgiving using the top down approach. Seen significant mite drops in a few of the largest colonies, and near nothing in smaller one's. I went back through sometime right around Christmas and did a one time shot just to see what dropped. I found two dead mites drop on one colony. All 14 colonies are still with me here at the end of January and looking reasonably strong, which is significantly better than what I did in 2020 using amitraz only. If weather allows, I may try to do another one time shot in February just to see what drops here. I realize there's a lot of opinions about bees fanning OA vapor around inside a hive body when it is applied from the bottom, but when my study revealed that OA vapor was heavier than air, I felt it better to shoot it in from the top and let the bees fan it as it works its way down. I'll continue to use this top down method here as it did produce significantly higher mite drops on those largest hives last Fall. Was it all enough to use the words " control " ???......Geez, I don't know just yet.......will be able to tell you more around the end of March when the flow cranks up and the air around here starts sounding like a buzz saw running from daylight until dark every day.
If in the end your mite count is the same after treating as before - yes you can call that "control" in that it did not increase - but in the end what it means is that as soon as you stop treating, you stop controlling, and the remaining mites are going to have opportunity to expand / grow. Since you can't treat forever - eventually if you don't eliminate the mites, you eventually lose to the mites.
Great content Bob. Maybe one day the bees will figure out what we can't. Until then I'll support all those willing to expend their time and energy to come up with some viable solution to a very complicated problem. I love listening to these guys.
Thank you for the follow-up to the research. I'd like to see additional research using double and triple the legal authorized dosage to see if there is a difference.
Interesting research although the actual decline of the mite load comes with larger dosage per box and with summer brood present here in crete greece works excellent with back to back treatments 3 days apart
So, if one treatment every five days maintains the mite population it's working to a degree. What would happen if you treated every four days then every three days until you found the plateau of not hurting the bees? I think that would be an interesting experiment. I did the once every five day thing a few years ago but got mite bombed by apiaries near me. During summer the mite counts did stay the same like the statistician said. And what about doing this at the end of the honey flows and the supers are pulled. I've found in my area that the queen takes a break from laying and people think they lost their queen. When in fact the queen shut down because nothing was coming in to the hive. With this break in the cycle and no capped brood this is the perfect chance to treat if the temperatures aren't too high that day.
I love the research. We need to know all the results so we can be better beekeepers. Thank you and hopefully I will get to see you at next year’s Hive life conference.
Thanks for this great information. In august/september 2020 i compared thymol treatment with 2 other beekeepers( 15 anf 40 miles away) who was using oav in august and i did all mite washes, and you could clearly see oav was not reducing numbers even though it was killing alot of mites. Oav washes in teens and 20's post treat and thymol was zero's and 1's. This is in nw alabama.
is there a threshold for the number of colonies that UGA would want to work with? We are near Augusta, GA and would certainly like to be a part if possible. I will check with our extension agent and inquire if they would care to be a part of the research and how I can support their efforts. Would be awesome to have someone document while I perform the treatments and forward this data.
Perhaps it is just this country. Here's a copy of the description. Api-Bioxal Oxalic Acid Treatment is registered by the USDA and is approved by the EPA for the treatment of varroa mites in honey bee colonies. It can be used in an oxalic acid vaporizer or using the dribble treatment method. For use in oxalic acid vaporizers, 1g of Api-Bioxal is recommended for the treatment of one hive. Available in 350g size.
Same here in the UK only api-bioxal is licenced 1g per treatment 1 treatment per year 350g pouch is £100. 250g of chemical grade pure oxalic acid is £2.99 delivered.
@@bobbinnie9872 1g "recommended" ?? Thats not a hard cap on a dose. Thats like the speed limit of 60mph and a yellow speed sign recommends 45mph. That yellow sign is not the legal speed limit, just a "recommendation". If that is the case, the dose could legally be whatever one would see fit. Thoughts? Has this ever come up in a court I wonder? Has anyone ever been legally in trouble?
@@AmericansBee No, I don't think that anyone has been in trouble and yes most beekeepers do what they think best with OAV but the legal dose is one gram. Beekeepers that are unaware of what's going on would be misled by the label.
In my 3 year trial, 1-2 grams per box maintains current numbers, 5 grams per box only reduced mite loads by 50% each treatment. To start reduction it took two treatments over 3 days to get the first 50% reduction then 50% each following treatment. Mite counts of 35 was common in my apiary with only using OAV spring and fall over the 3 years. At a 50% reduction you can easily do the math on how many grams it took and repeated applications, far more than the government will ever approve for practical use.
Bob (and UGA bee lab!) thank you so much for sharing these methods and results. Information like this is incredibly valuable. I forwarded the three-part series from last year to the rest of the bee lab here at the University of Colorado, and we used it to inform our IPM procedures for ongoing research. Is any of this information (including last year's series) published or available in paper form yet? Also, what conferences does the UGA bee lab attend/present their findings or regularly attend? Thank you Bob for your work in acting as a conduit of information for beekeepers, you are truly doing a great service.
Hi Boulder Valley. Jennifer and Lewis speak often at local, state and national meetings but I don't know their schedule. I know that research from the bee lab at UGA is being published but I don't know if any of this has been yet. If you search "Jennifer Berry UGA" you will find her email address listed on the information page. She could tell you what has already been published and what is coming up. Thanks.
Hello ser. One gram per box is not eoungh. They should treat with 2 g or 3 g. Period between treatmants is too long. They need to treat 0, 3, 6, 9, 12 , 15 day too cover varoe hatching. Sorry for gramer.
Worries me that they try doing this one time and call the results (good or bad) fact. Scientific studies have to be repeated. The more times an experiment is repeated, the more likely these results are true and meaningful. Would have like that they worked with someone who had good results with this process and tested that vs adding in their variations. It’s my pet peeve with phd’s. Mites been here since mid 1980’s and we don’t know much more 40 years late
If you listen to the video, they explain how one person might see success vs others, depending on the many variables at play. It may depend on your starting point and how you define success. How do you claim to know all the details of what they’ve done from a 7 minute video? Go read the paper!
@@davenirschl6522 and that’s why I said it would be nice to have someone who claims success with a process to try to replicate it in another area and time…
Did I miss the gram dosage per super? Would think that would be very pertinent. Cause we could, I did 11 hives this last Fall, all at night and around 4 grams per supper. Several of the Nucs received double that doseage. 4 days apart, 5 treatments. Since the OA appears to be fairly benign I thought, why not. At the end it was too cold to do washes. On a funny note, I treated one swarm that had moved into a hollow white pine here. Noting to self, running OA up on a 15 foot ladder is not as fun as one might think.
Hey Bob! You mentioned in the video, that OAV may not be enough for clean bees in the spring this year. My bees may also have that issue due to brooding more than normal this winter. If you need to treat yours this spring, may I ask what you are Planning to use? Apivar has always been our go to in the spring. Because it doesn’t slow the queen down and is not temperature dependent. But with the results we have had and others it could be a total waste of time and money. Thanks.
I think an Apiguard treatment may be enough provided the colonies are strong and the mite count isn't too high. If they are weak I would not use it because as you know it slows the queen down. Believe or not that can actually disrupt brood rearing enough to help with swarming on strong colonies.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks Bob! I hope they come out of winter not needing a treatment. We did two rounds of OAV this winter. They were fairly close to broodless, but didn’t stay that way long. I had not thought of it, but can definitely see where it could curtail swarming. Thanks for the info.
What dosage were they using Bob? Thank you Bob for helping us understand what we are fighting. Another interesting study would be 4 days apart for 7 times vs 3 days apart for 7 times, does this control mites. If OA stays in the hive for 3 days before it dissipates waiting 5 days is too long maybe?? Thanks Bob - you are the best.
@@bobbinnie9872 I agree also. I have read somewhere that varroa stays phoretic for 3-4 days, 5 days seems to long to me too! Here in Europe we use 2 grams.
Thank you Bob, for the continued information about the research. It now has been established that the one gram dosage does not work on reducing the mite load. I understand that regardless of the common knowledge, documentation is vital to ascertain the research. Would they be trying the 2g dosege in winter? Or are they continuing 1gr over winter?
@@bobbinnie9872 i hope they go higher until they see the max that is needed to do the job and then go until they see damage or harm. Just to know the upper limits.
Thank you Bob this topic always peaks my interest. Is there any thoughts that climate can affect the efficacy? Do you know of anyone testing the possible synergy between Amitraz and Oxalic Acid Vapor?
Check out this link: ²Johnson RM, Dahlgren L, Siegfried BD, Ellis MD (2013) Acaricide, Fungicide and Drug Interactions in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera). PLoS ONE 8(1): e54092. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone....
I have not tried the sponge method but the blue shop towel method did not work well for me. I know others that say it does not work for them and some that say it does.
I don't mean to get off topic but I am in my first winter as a bee keeper and i am in a poor area for honey production but I know a guy about an hour away that has a large property with a lot of trifolate orange aka hardy orange would it be a good honey producer and worth my time to haul my 10 double deeps there for honey then bring them home and split and grow after honey thanks bob please keep all the information coming
This was a very interesting discussion. I'm in Britain and I treat with oxallic acid by sublimation in september and december. The traditional varroa drop number has been moderate to high. I've had 300+ in september on some hives, 20 in december when I guesstimate the queen has stopped...or at least minimised her laying. When I remove the insulation and briefly peer through the perspex on warmer days all the hives appear numerous with bees. Do bees generate a natural cleaning of varroa? If varroa numbers are high in summer should we consider a 'shook' (and then perform an oxalic sublimation on the pheroic bees)and effectively dump the brood in the original hive?
Your "shook idea is interesting and valid. In Part 2 the discussion is about isolating the queen and treating at the point where brood has disappeared which does much the same thing. I know mites continue to drop in winter but I'm not sure of the mechanism by which this is occurring.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you for your reply. I've watched many, many of your videos to increase my knowledge of beekeeping. I respect that different geographical locations will mean some methods work/don't work, but your ideas that I've adopted have been successful. The kind and knowledgeable way you speak gets my firm attention. Hive mortality rates in West of Scotland have been recorded as being as high as 50% and I'm sure this is the combined effect of varroa and a late spring. I'm trying pollen patties if spring is late this year. Wet, damp, cold don't encourage hive growth!
Varroa is here unfortunately, Monitoring Mite loads is a necessary evil. If someone is serious about beekeeping and keeping bees alive you have to do it. IPM is a great way to reduce mites, but knowing mite levels is key. Oxalic acid is a tool like the other control measures. It’s not a silver bullet. It must be used in conjunction with timing ect to be the right tool for the job. I believe science will discover additional uses for oxalic acid as a treatment, but for now we need to use it when it’s effective. I’m very curious about the oxalic acid strips. Hopefully we will hear more on those in the future. Stay safe and Happy Beekeeping
I can say it has worked for me that past few years. I treat my bees in Aug. 3 times at 4 day intervals. Then I treat again in late Dec or Jan. on a warm day's evening when the bees have been active. Sometimes I do this twice. My average hive count over past 3 years was 16 hives. I lost 3 hives over last 3 years. That's a one per year. I can live with that. I use nothing else to treat my bees. I use more than 1 gram per deep. Closer to 2.
Yes, I have a meeting with Dan Aurell at Auburn University tomorrow. He was a big part of that study and I'm hoping he will provide me with graphs to share. I hope to make it part three.
deer guys, what ıs the rıght percentıce for oxcalıc lıguıd. ı use 1 lt. water ,40 gr.oxcalıc and 200 gr sugar mıxed altogether and used 7 days every perıod when ı controld the colonıes. ıs that has some faulty or not ı dont know but ıt works...
Dear bob binnie could you give us the link to the journal in which you published the results of your work on oxalic acid? Is it important to see the methodology you followed to judge the correctness of your results or not. What you are claiming is only personal opinions and not scientific data. Thank you.
@@VITOHoney Jennifer tells me that the study on repeated application has been accepted by the "Journal Of Insect Science" but is currently be held to be included in a "Special Edition". She did not know when that is scheduled to come out. The brood break study which will be "part 2" on TH-cam is scheduled to be submitted in March. The Aluen Cap research which will be "part 3" is also scheduled to be submitted in March.
Great insight into a problem that we don't have here in Aus. Plenty of research happening trying to genetic solution but we fear the mite will arrive beforehand
All this discussion of 1 gram. I use a "lega" vaporizer. You basically count your hives and spoon 1gram per hive into crucible. Probably could do 30 hives with one loading.. Smoke each hive for 30 seconds. But you really do not know how much goes into each hive. It kills mites. Is anyone else familiar with lega vaporizer?
I agree but I believe it will include more behavioral traits than just VSH. I've played with it some but I don't know enough to share anything about it.
The mathematics of genetics is against replicating VSH consistently at 15:1 against the 2 pairs of recessive genes meeting up and producing the positive traits of opening cells and cleaning them. Many major breeders have dropped VSH and moved on. The annual declarations prove this.
Treating with OAV every five days is a waste of time if you want to decrease the mite population. OAV is only active in a hive for about 2-3 days with large a decrease by day three. Treating that far apart only targets the phoretic mites which compromises about 20% of the infestation in a hive and give the mite population time to rebound as the next generation continues it's life cycle. In other words by treating every five days with an effective lethal time of two days there would only be about 40% kill rate on the total mite population in the hive. Decreasing the time interval to every third day not only hits the phoretic mites but also provides a continuous exposure to the matriarchal or breeder mites which move from brood cell to brood cell over a period of 30 hours. Since the breeder mites make up 80% of the mite population a treatment schedule of every third day will drastically improve the overall mite kill rate by targeting the breeders as they move. I have found that treating every third day for a total of eight treatments will pretty much eradicate mites even in a heavily infested hive. Performing a treatment every third day for eight treatments totals 24 days which is two complete mite life cycles and has shown to be the most effective in my yard. Targeting the mites using their breeding cycle works better than targeting them using the honeybee breeding cycle although they are intermixed.
Over the last 20 years as a bee keeper I've realized that "control" is not the objective when dealing with mites. It's either eradication of the mites or they will eradicate the hive they infest. It's a war and needs to be treated as such.
Thanks for your research and work against the Varroa Destructor mite.
We agree and this initial study proves your point. Good comment and I will pin it at the top. Thanks.
I just commented to Bob about looking at treating every four days, then every three days and see if that works to drop the levels of mites. My concern would be damage to the queen? Any issues on your end with seeing this?
3 days? 72 hours?
Treat Sunday/Wednesday?
Cage the Queen for 24 or 28 days... treat with trickle OA on day 24... 90plus efficacy.. why bcos the mites will only be on the bees as there is no more available brood. Trickle OA lasts for approximately 10days.. so in this time your bees are exposed as are the mites. Best time to do it a month before the making of the winter bees
I would like to add to that, would it be more effective if you treated at night so all the foragers bees are inside and treating in a dearth so the brood is low?
Glad that you’re doing another series on this, Bob. Good stuff.
Personally, I did a 4x 4-day interval mid-December series with 4g/deep and monitored drop counts. Most appeared to not be broodless because the mites continued falling with each application. Though they all looked pretty clean after the 4th application. OAV is useful, but fickle - especially with brood present.
Hi Bob from Greece. In the summer with brood we do every three days at 270 C and not every 4 days with 100% efficiency after 6 times. It is wrong in the summer to do brood every 4 days
It’ll be interesting to see what the larger dosages did. Bob, thanks a ton for doing this, both the videos, and furnishing the resources to help make the research possible.
Thank you! We were wondering the same.
Thanks Bob, for giving this vital research a great platform for beekeepers to understand it!
Thanks for taking the time to share the information Bob, we now have a baseline of what doesn’t work, I look forward to the next.
Appreciate the video and info. A season long, multi-faceted approach will be needed by most of us.. like stated mites counts being the key.
Bob, love how you ask the right questions.
The best treatment against varroa is monitoring,when beekeepers realize it things will get better and better for beekeeping 🐝
I use oxalic acid strips with glucerin when brood is present
OAV on winter broodless periods 3g every 7 days for 21days (3 times totally)
Brood breaks in spring time when i create nucs with sealed brood from donor colonies (90%of varroa is trapped inside the brood) and i introduce a queen cell,creating pherotic mites before the new brood get sealed and i use oav or oa dribble.
I try to keep my alcohol washes below 3% all year round using always organic treatments because bee products must be as clean as we can.
I really like the combination of these two, really great explanations but in a way that us humble beekeepers can follow and grasp. Thanks Bob, looking forward to more.
Thank you, Bob, for continuing to help educate and pass along your knowledge!
Thanks Bob for this reaserch! I"ll wait the next parts of the study with 2g and 3 g of oxalic per hive and the interval of repeted trataments must be 3 or maximum 4 days. I am from Roumania and I also use oxalic vaporization because I want to reduce the use pf chemical trataments! Good luck!
Thank you Bob for putting this information out here! Another great video!
14 mixed size hives here in Northern Alabama. Nothing but OA vapor used in 2021. Double doses used. No alcohol wash counts done. No treatments done all summer. All colonies treated right before dark in the evening from the bottom board. Started treating in August....6 treatments 5 days apart = only fair mite drops observed. Repeated steps in October with similar results....hives were working goldenrod during most of this and looked extremely healthy at this point, but I wasn't satisfied with my mite drops yet. I drilled the rear top box on every colony just low enough to clear the top bars on the frames. I did 3 more treatment around Thankgiving using the top down approach. Seen significant mite drops in a few of the largest colonies, and near nothing in smaller one's. I went back through sometime right around Christmas and did a one time shot just to see what dropped. I found two dead mites drop on one colony. All 14 colonies are still with me here at the end of January and looking reasonably strong, which is significantly better than what I did in 2020 using amitraz only. If weather allows, I may try to do another one time shot in February just to see what drops here. I realize there's a lot of opinions about bees fanning OA vapor around inside a hive body when it is applied from the bottom, but when my study revealed that OA vapor was heavier than air, I felt it better to shoot it in from the top and let the bees fan it as it works its way down. I'll continue to use this top down method here as it did produce significantly higher mite drops on those largest hives last Fall. Was it all enough to use the words " control " ???......Geez, I don't know just yet.......will be able to tell you more around the end of March when the flow cranks up and the air around here starts sounding like a buzz saw running from daylight until dark every day.
👍Thanks for the comment.
If in the end your mite count is the same after treating as before - yes you can call that "control" in that it did not increase - but in the end what it means is that as soon as you stop treating, you stop controlling, and the remaining mites are going to have opportunity to expand / grow. Since you can't treat forever - eventually if you don't eliminate the mites, you eventually lose to the mites.
Great content Bob. Maybe one day the bees will figure out what we can't. Until then I'll support all those willing to expend their time and energy to come up with some viable solution to a very complicated problem. I love listening to these guys.
I'm with you. And I do believe we're on a slow but steady journey to the bees "figuring it out".
Really enjoying this series, thanks for all you do for the beekeeping community!
Thank you for the follow-up to the research. I'd like to see additional research using double and triple the legal authorized dosage to see if there is a difference.
That's actually coming. Thanks.
Interesting research although the actual decline of the mite load comes with larger dosage per box and with summer brood present here in crete greece works excellent with back to back treatments 3 days apart
We agree and I believe future research will prove this.
So, if one treatment every five days maintains the mite population it's working to a degree. What would happen if you treated every four days then every three days until you found the plateau of not hurting the bees?
I think that would be an interesting experiment.
I did the once every five day thing a few years ago but got mite bombed by apiaries near me. During summer the mite counts did stay the same like the statistician said.
And what about doing this at the end of the honey flows and the supers are pulled. I've found in my area that the queen takes a break from laying and people think they lost their queen. When in fact the queen shut down because nothing was coming in to the hive. With this break in the cycle and no capped brood this is the perfect chance to treat if the temperatures aren't too high that day.
It would be nice to have slides of the data to compliment the summary of the results.
I love the research. We need to know all the results so we can be better beekeepers. Thank you and hopefully I will get to see you at next year’s Hive life conference.
Thanks for this great information. In august/september 2020 i compared thymol treatment with 2 other beekeepers( 15 anf 40 miles away) who was using oav in august and i did all mite washes, and you could clearly see oav was not reducing numbers even though it was killing alot of mites. Oav washes in teens and 20's post treat and thymol was zero's and 1's. This is in nw alabama.
Thanks !! Looking forward to continuing research
is there a threshold for the number of colonies that UGA would want to work with? We are near Augusta, GA and would certainly like to be a part if possible. I will check with our extension agent and inquire if they would care to be a part of the research and how I can support their efforts. Would be awesome to have someone document while I perform the treatments and forward this data.
I don’t understand the 1g label. It must just be a US label. I don’t think any jurisdiction uses under 2g labeled recommendations
Perhaps it is just this country. Here's a copy of the description. Api-Bioxal Oxalic Acid Treatment is registered by the USDA and is approved by the EPA for the treatment of varroa mites in honey bee colonies. It can be used in an oxalic acid vaporizer or using the dribble treatment method. For use in oxalic acid vaporizers, 1g of Api-Bioxal is recommended for the treatment of one hive. Available in 350g size.
Same here in the UK only api-bioxal is licenced 1g per treatment 1 treatment per year 350g pouch is £100. 250g of chemical grade pure oxalic acid is £2.99 delivered.
@@bobbinnie9872 1g "recommended" ?? Thats not a hard cap on a dose. Thats like the speed limit of 60mph and a yellow speed sign recommends 45mph. That yellow sign is not the legal speed limit, just a "recommendation". If that is the case, the dose could legally be whatever one would see fit. Thoughts? Has this ever come up in a court I wonder? Has anyone ever been legally in trouble?
@@AmericansBee No, I don't think that anyone has been in trouble and yes most beekeepers do what they think best with OAV but the legal dose is one gram. Beekeepers that are unaware of what's going on would be misled by the label.
In my 3 year trial, 1-2 grams per box maintains current numbers, 5 grams per box only reduced mite loads by 50% each treatment. To start reduction it took two treatments over 3 days to get the first 50% reduction then 50% each following treatment. Mite counts of 35 was common in my apiary with only using OAV spring and fall over the 3 years. At a 50% reduction you can easily do the math on how many grams it took and repeated applications, far more than the government will ever approve for practical use.
Thanks a lot for your great videos Bob. As beekepers from Turkey we follow your videos and learn lots of informations.
Thank you.
Bob (and UGA bee lab!) thank you so much for sharing these methods and results. Information like this is incredibly valuable. I forwarded the three-part series from last year to the rest of the bee lab here at the University of Colorado, and we used it to inform our IPM procedures for ongoing research. Is any of this information (including last year's series) published or available in paper form yet? Also, what conferences does the UGA bee lab attend/present their findings or regularly attend?
Thank you Bob for your work in acting as a conduit of information for beekeepers, you are truly doing a great service.
Hi Boulder Valley. Jennifer and Lewis speak often at local, state and national meetings but I don't know their schedule. I know that research from the bee lab at UGA is being published but I don't know if any of this has been yet. If you search "Jennifer Berry UGA" you will find her email address listed on the information page. She could tell you what has already been published and what is coming up. Thanks.
I recently saw your comment on duck river video 👍 so good timing with this video, both were great. Thanks Sir
Thank you. 👍
Hello ser. One gram per box is not eoungh. They should treat with 2 g or 3 g. Period between treatmants is too long. They need to treat 0, 3, 6, 9, 12 , 15 day too cover varoe hatching. Sorry for gramer.
I agree.
Worries me that they try doing this one time and call the results (good or bad) fact.
Scientific studies have to be repeated. The more times an experiment is repeated, the more likely these results are true and meaningful.
Would have like that they worked with someone who had good results with this process and tested that vs adding in their variations. It’s my pet peeve with phd’s. Mites been here since mid 1980’s and we don’t know much more 40 years late
Think about the number of videos that are made from Ala to Washington that show a blue towel or pig laid across the frames
If you listen to the video, they explain how one person might see success vs others, depending on the many variables at play. It may depend on your starting point and how you define success. How do you claim to know all the details of what they’ve done from a 7 minute video? Go read the paper!
@@davenirschl6522 and that’s why I said it would be nice to have someone who claims success with a process to try to replicate it in another area and time…
Hi Bob I used sublimation only in winter when there are no litters in the hives. I wonder how oxalic acid fumes affect the open litter, the larvae?
I have not noticed a problem with the larvae at the dose we use. I have heard that very high doses can cause trouble.
Did I miss the gram dosage per super? Would think that would be very pertinent.
Cause we could, I did 11 hives this last Fall, all at night and around 4 grams per supper. Several of the Nucs received double that doseage. 4 days apart, 5 treatments. Since the OA appears to be fairly benign I thought, why not. At the end it was too cold to do washes. On a funny note, I treated one swarm that had moved into a hollow white pine here. Noting to self, running OA up on a 15 foot ladder is not as fun as one might think.
It was mentioned at the end. One gram per box. Plans are to increase dosage to two and then three.
Hey Bob! You mentioned in the video, that OAV may not be enough for clean bees in the spring this year. My bees may also have that issue due to brooding more than normal this winter. If you need to treat yours this spring, may I ask what you are Planning to use? Apivar has always been our go to in the spring. Because it doesn’t slow the queen down and is not temperature dependent. But with the results we have had and others it could be a total waste of time and money. Thanks.
I think an Apiguard treatment may be enough provided the colonies are strong and the mite count isn't too high. If they are weak I would not use it because as you know it slows the queen down. Believe or not that can actually disrupt brood rearing enough to help with swarming on strong colonies.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks Bob! I hope they come out of winter not needing a treatment. We did two rounds of OAV this winter. They were fairly close to broodless, but didn’t stay that way long. I had not thought of it, but can definitely see where it could curtail swarming. Thanks for the info.
What dosage were they using Bob? Thank you Bob for helping us understand what we are fighting.
Another interesting study would be 4 days apart for 7 times vs 3 days apart for 7 times, does this control mites. If OA stays in the hive for 3 days before it dissipates waiting 5 days is too long maybe?? Thanks Bob - you are the best.
Personally, I think three or four days would work better. They are going to be trying larger doses.
@@bobbinnie9872 I agree also. I have read somewhere that varroa stays phoretic for 3-4 days, 5 days seems to long to me too! Here in Europe we use 2 grams.
Thank you Bob, for the continued information about the research. It now has been established that the one gram dosage does not work on reducing the mite load. I understand that regardless of the common knowledge, documentation is vital to ascertain the research. Would they be trying the 2g dosege in winter? Or are they continuing 1gr over winter?
I believe They're going to try two and then three grams both ways.
@Bob Binnie thank you Bob, looking forward to your updates
@@bobbinnie9872 i hope they go higher until they see the max that is needed to do the job and then go until they see damage or harm. Just to know the upper limits.
@@AmericansBee That's where they're headed with this. More to come.
Thank you Bob this topic always peaks my interest. Is there any thoughts that climate can affect the efficacy?
Do you know of anyone testing the possible synergy between Amitraz and Oxalic Acid Vapor?
Check out this link: ²Johnson RM, Dahlgren L, Siegfried BD, Ellis MD (2013) Acaricide, Fungicide and Drug Interactions in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera). PLoS ONE 8(1): e54092. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone....
Good information, Bob. Thank you
Bob, what is the feeling about "Aluen cap" as a product? it is the one we use in the UK rather than "Shop towels"
Part three in this series is going to cover that and will come out soon. Some will like it and some won't, depending on how they need to use it.
What’s your opinion on the Randy Oliver method with OA & glycerin? Supposed to last for 3 moths or so and through multiple brood cycles.
I have not tried the sponge method but the blue shop towel method did not work well for me. I know others that say it does not work for them and some that say it does.
I don't mean to get off topic but I am in my first winter as a bee keeper and i am in a poor area for honey production but I know a guy about an hour away that has a large property with a lot of trifolate orange aka hardy orange would it be a good honey producer and worth my time to haul my 10 double deeps there for honey then bring them home and split and grow after honey thanks bob please keep all the information coming
Hi Jeremiah. I'm not personally familiar with that as a nectar source.
This was a very interesting discussion. I'm in Britain and I treat with oxallic acid by sublimation in september and december. The traditional varroa drop number has been moderate to high. I've had 300+ in september on some hives, 20 in december when I guesstimate the queen has stopped...or at least minimised her laying. When I remove the insulation and briefly peer through the perspex on warmer days all the hives appear numerous with bees. Do bees generate a natural cleaning of varroa? If varroa numbers are high in summer should we consider a 'shook' (and then perform an oxalic sublimation on the pheroic bees)and effectively dump the brood in the original hive?
Your "shook idea is interesting and valid. In Part 2 the discussion is about isolating the queen and treating at the point where brood has disappeared which does much the same thing. I know mites continue to drop in winter but I'm not sure of the mechanism by which this is occurring.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you for your reply. I've watched many, many of your videos to increase my knowledge of beekeeping. I respect that different geographical locations will mean some methods work/don't work, but your ideas that I've adopted have been successful. The kind and knowledgeable way you speak gets my firm attention. Hive mortality rates in West of Scotland have been recorded as being as high as 50% and I'm sure this is the combined effect of varroa and a late spring. I'm trying pollen patties if spring is late this year. Wet, damp, cold don't encourage hive growth!
Varroa is here unfortunately, Monitoring Mite loads is a necessary evil. If someone is serious about beekeeping and keeping bees alive you have to do it. IPM is a great way to reduce mites, but knowing mite levels is key. Oxalic acid is a tool like the other control measures. It’s not a silver bullet. It must be used in conjunction with timing ect to be the right tool for the job. I believe science will discover additional uses for oxalic acid as a treatment, but for now we need to use it when it’s effective. I’m very curious about the oxalic acid strips. Hopefully we will hear more on those in the future. Stay safe and Happy Beekeeping
We will be reporting on the strips in part 3.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks so much. I’ve been wondering about them, but couldn’t find much information. Thanks as always.
I can say it has worked for me that past few years. I treat my bees in Aug. 3 times at 4 day intervals. Then I treat again in late Dec or Jan. on a warm day's evening when the bees have been active. Sometimes I do this twice. My average hive count over past 3 years was 16 hives. I lost 3 hives over last 3 years. That's a one per year. I can live with that. I use nothing else to treat my bees. I use more than 1 gram per deep. Closer to 2.
that is what we need, more research.
Can you tell something about decompose oxalic acid on higer temperature then 170 degree C
So where do the USDA now stand with oxalic acid please?
1 gram per box, but that should change soon.
What if you treat oxalic acid at night so the foragers bees are inside and do it with a dearth so the brood is low
That works if you can treat a number of successive times a few days apart.
Bob, have they seen any results from the OA strips from South America that y’all did a video on last year? Thanks, Bill
Yes, I have a meeting with Dan Aurell at Auburn University tomorrow. He was a big part of that study and I'm hoping he will provide me with graphs to share. I hope to make it part three.
deer guys, what ıs the rıght percentıce for oxcalıc lıguıd. ı use 1 lt. water ,40 gr.oxcalıc and 200 gr sugar mıxed altogether and used 7 days every perıod when ı controld the colonıes. ıs that has some faulty or not ı dont know but ıt works...
Sorry, I'm not familiar with that method.
Dear bob binnie could you give us the link to the journal in which you published the results of your work on oxalic acid? Is it important to see the methodology you followed to judge the correctness of your results or not. What you are claiming is only personal opinions and not scientific data. Thank you.
This work has been accepted but not published yet. There will be more information in charts, graphs and models in the next video.
@@bobbinnie9872 than you.When is going to publish?
@@VITOHoney Jennifer tells me that the study on repeated application has been accepted by the "Journal Of Insect Science" but is currently be held to be included in a "Special Edition". She did not know when that is scheduled to come out.
The brood break study which will be "part 2" on TH-cam is scheduled to be submitted in March. The Aluen Cap research which will be "part 3" is also scheduled to be submitted in March.
@@bobbinnie9872 thank you!
Great insight into a problem that we don't have here in Aus. Plenty of research happening trying to genetic solution but we fear the mite will arrive beforehand
Perhaps there will be answers in place by the time it gets there.
All this discussion of 1 gram. I use a "lega" vaporizer. You basically count your hives and spoon 1gram per hive into crucible. Probably could do 30 hives with one loading.. Smoke each hive for 30 seconds. But you really do not know how much goes into each hive. It kills mites. Is anyone else familiar with lega vaporizer?
Thanks. I'm not familiar with that one.
Maybe a Government agency should start doing something! Maybe even give a green light to USA made products!
The more studies are done, the more I’m seeing the answer is going to be the genetics. VSH bee development
I agree but I believe it will include more behavioral traits than just VSH. I've played with it some but I don't know enough to share anything about it.
The mathematics of genetics is against replicating VSH consistently at 15:1 against the 2 pairs of recessive genes meeting up and producing the positive traits of opening cells and cleaning them. Many major breeders have dropped VSH and moved on. The annual declarations prove this.
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I'm sorry but I just dont agree!