Salt to kill varroa

[louis1st]

Hi
I have been using Sea salt to treat my bees against varroa (as part of a concentrated syrup given throughout the year, when i think this is needed), and did note heavy varroa falls on every occasions. (although this didn't prevent a few losses over the years)

Has anybody else on here tried it?
Yours comments are welcome!

PS- I don't take honey from the bees.

[Sundance]

Sounds a bit unusual that salt would work. Please give me some more info and test data.

And why sea salt?? Salt is salt, is it not?? (other than iodine and anticaking agents).

And why don't you take honey from the bees???

Thanks

[Dick Allen]

Copper gluconate has been mixed with syrup and fed to bees for mite control. It apparently hasn’t worked as well as hoped.

www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/cupric_salts.pdf (http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/cupric_salts.pdf)

www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/anti_varroa_methods.pdf (http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/anti_varroa_methods.pdf)

[BULLSEYE BILL]

Didn't Bwrangler have a salt and vitamin C roll that he put on the hive entrance? I think I saw it on his site a couple of years ago.

[louis1st]

I am a hobbyist and keep bees because i like bees, and only took honey twice in about 20 years.

I think the Lusby (the small cell people), also recommend natural food for their bees.

Anyway, it's just normal salt (but not the low salt you can find here sometimes in some supermarkets).

My recipie is simple, boil 0.6 litre of water, and add about 2 big table spoons of salt to 1 kg of sugar, stir.
I also add some honey to make it more attractive (about 2-3 table spoons )depending on the time of the year.

Last year, i feed most of my bees with it, including a very badly infected hive, and noted a very high fall of varroas at the entrance.

Unfortunately, about a week later, this particular hive stopped taking the syrup, and although it seemed a lot better, it died later in the autumn, but I actually think it was due to an old buckfast queen!

[Martha]

What would the excess salt do to the bees? Would the honey have excess salt as well? What about the little baby bees, would the salt do something to their development?

Dee would not approve salt in your sugar water feed. She only says to use sugar water if you do not have honey. Let the bees gather what they need on their own. She considers putting stuff in the feed or hives as a crutch.

Small cell and breeding bees for your area/climate is her varroa "treatment".

Check her yahoo web group: organicbeekeeping

Martha

[Grant]

There was an article in the ABJ many years ago about adding salt to sugar syrup (in the days before varroa). Benefits included increased longevity in the bees (and higher death rates at higher rates) and an increased wax production.

I don't have the article at my immediate fingertips. The author has moved to Europe (I tried to find him to see what follow-up tests were done). I'll have to search my stack of old magazines to see. The rate of .5% sticks in my mind, which is about one teaspoon per quart (someone else can do the metric converstion).

Since that time, I've heard nothing about the benefits of salted sugar syrup.

Grant

[ikeepbees]

BB,

Dennis uses Vitamin C in his protein patties -

http://bwrangler.madpage.com/bee/gsub.htm

The salt rolls involved grease patties containing wintergreen, honey, and salt, and are described here -

http://www.hereintown.net/~jkahl/sare.htm

[louis1st]

Hi
Very interesting links.

in reply to Martha, I haven't tried what could be considered as a high salt level as I don't want to kill my bees, so can't really reply to your question.

I can only say that I have never noticed any abnormal death rate (adult bees and brood).
I consider this to be a safe method but i guess can't be used during the honey flow as you could end up with some salted syrup with your honey!