Sucrose Ocatonoate

[wyatt]

Does anyone have any information on Sucrose Ocatonoate? It is a sugar ester that is used for control of Varroa Mites, usually mixed with vegetable oil. It is Listed as an "organic" control that is "97% effective", the same as I've seen Apistan and Checkmite listed for. It requires 3 treatments at 7 day intervals, sprayed on both sides of all frames but might be worth it if it works.

[BeeBear]

Do a search for "sucrocide" on this discussion group, or via Google.

[beemandan]

I've used Sucrocide several times. I calibrated the sprayer/application times per instructions. I applied it three times as directed. It is VERY labor intensive and the bees hate it, but it appears to be effective.
I experienced a couple of side effects. I used it in ten of my hives this season. Following each application several of those colonies would begin producing supercedure queens and yet, in each, the current queen was still actively laying. I guessed that the stuff must disrupt the pheromone distribution within the colony. Also after each application I noticed workers removing dead larvae from the hives. I believe that sucrocide is probably toxic to uncapped larvae.
I will continue to use the stuff on any colonies that are heavily Varroa infested. At the same time I would recommend that anyone who uses it monitor those hives closely after appllication.
Dan
www.boogerhillbee.com

[peggjam]

I used it last fall as per application instructions and had no problems. Although I tend to agree with Dan that it proably causes the loss of some brood. Didn't have any problems with supercedure cells though.

[Michael Bush]

Try a search on "suckercide" too. There was a long discussion under that name. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[tecumseh]

at the old beekeeper use to tell me when I would inquire as to whether a gizmo would work, he would say 'works, after a fashion'. which meant sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't.

to beemandan:
I suspect (but obviously do not know) that your supercedure problem may be more directly associated with the vorroa investation (was it severe on those hives?) than the sucrocide application.

[beemandan]

tecumseh,
Those colonies were pretty badly infested. Two questions, I suppose.
If the current queen is productive, will Varroa infestation drive the colony to supercedure anyway?
In each instance, when I first applied the sucrocide, there weren't any (that I saw) supercedure cells. When I returned the following week for a second application there were several. Coincidence?

[tecumseh]

beemandan ask:
Coincidence?

tecumseh replies:
I think not. But I suspect (and I did express this on another thread???) the the varroa-supercedure may go hand in hand. actually I made the statement that it appear to me that on many occasions a suspect hive would go thru two cycles of queen rearing (this effectively breaks the brood cycle) before a new queen would get firmly established.

[George Fergusson]

I'm not aware of heavy varroa infestations leading to premature supercedure, yet anyways, but I suppose I wouldn't be surprised. Mites stress hives in a lot of ways including by just plain demoralizing them. Depressed bees. I had a number of pretty heavily mite infested hives last season and did not notice any alarming number of supercedure attempts in any of them.

I have noticed that the bees routinely build and tear down queen cells whether they intend supercedure or not. I guess they just like to keep some cups handy. Unless the cells have larvae in them or are capped, I wouldn't automatically assume they intend to replace their queen. I've even found empty capped queen cells.

The following is pure speculation. If there was significant loss of open brood after a Sucrocide treatment, the bees might interpret this as a problem with their queen and attempt supercedure. Supercedure may also be a normal response to colony stress whether brought on by a mite treatment or by the mites themselves, or by beekeeper harrassment.

[beemandan]

George,I did wonder if the brood loss was a factor. There actually was considerable loss. It just didn't make intuitive sense to me that the bees would draw such a conclusion. By the way, the supercedure cells were capped, so the colonies were serious about the replacement.

Since, it seems, I'm the only one to have this experience, it is probably something I did wrong.

[George Fergusson]

>It just didn't make intuitive sense to me that the bees would draw such a conclusion.

I'll bet you didn't take the time to explain to the bees what you were doing and why...

[beemandan]

By golly, George, I'll bet that's it! I won't make that mistake again.....

[dickm]

You say "when I came back a week later..." And "they were capped..."
This tells me they were there when you treated. I think they are capped on the 8th day.

Dickm

[beemandan]

when I came back a week later
I suppose that I'm going to have to get precise on this. When I wrote the message I hadn't gone back and examined my notes and am only reporting from memory. I was using approximate times. It wasn't any sooner than 7 days between treatments and may have been as long as 10.
I really don't think that I had 3 hives out of 10 that I treated, that coincidentally were beginning supercedure on the same, or nearly the same day I did my treatment. Possible, but not likely.

[size="1"][ January 14, 2006, 06:39 AM: Message edited by: beemandan ][/size]

[beemandan]

OK, at the risk of beating this dead horse one more time. According to my notes Suc#1 was on 7/27 and #2 on 8/4. 7 or 8 days...it doesn't matter.
dickm, correct me if I'm mistaken. The 8 day to cap interval is from egg laid to capped cell. Right? Under the supercedure impulse, the workers will choose young larvae...so at least 3 days has already passed. Then, if my ciphering is correct, another 5 days to cap.
Is this correct?

[tecumseh]

beemandan ask:
Since, it seems, I'm the only one to have this experience, it is probably something I did wrong.

tecumseh replies:
well don' t feel like lonesome dan, cause I witnessed this also. as an additional bit of data: this occured on my 'most invested' hives.

but as someone else suggested, I suspect that the girls were already in the process of making queen cells. so beemandan the question is: by the third spraying of sucrocide had the queen cells hatched?

[beemandan]

tecumseh, at the time of the second application I removed all of the capped cells. Remember, I found, in each hive, a laying queen. To my recollection, by the time of the third application, the brood rearing process was so disrupted....I just don't recall if there were any new supercedure cells and I didn't mention any in my notes. If there were I would have removed them too. About three weeks after the final application, all of the hives were back in full brood rearing business.

This all appears to have been a result of something I did wrong. After reading George's suggestion I went out to the 10 treated hives and apologized to them. I also promised to tell them in advance before I do anything of the kind again.

[TwT]

beemandan, I have heard people say they find dead SHB's after treating with sucrocide, have you seen this??

[beemandan]

Ted, dead SHB?? I wish! I've even sprayed any SHB I came across directly and it didn't kill them...at least right away. I do expect that Sucrocide is just as toxic to SHB larvae as it is to bee larvae. So, I think that it might get some of those.

[TwT]

I have heard some say that when they do a 24 hour tray inspection after treatment they have found dead SHB's, was just wondering if you seen the same thing.