A chemical poll
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Oh, I took Never as in Never use it any more, not Never used it. I used it when it first came out. There wasn't anything else to use. But I stopped using it when it became ineffective. So I "Never" use it anymore. There are other things to spend my time and money on.
That being said, a friend of mine who doesn't do beesource, so isn't going to vote, uses it annually and leaves the strips in his hives. He says that the ones that make it through the winter are the ones w/ the strips in them. The dead ones don't. I don't know if that's a good cause and effect assumption to make. I know it is against label recommendations. It does show up in his honey, but well below the tolerance level, extremely well below. According to the lab reports that I have seen.
Maybe you could clarify your poll, but it doesn't look like you are going to get much response more than what you have gotten. But don't let me discourage you.
That being said, a friend of mine who doesn't do beesource, so isn't going to vote, uses it annually and leaves the strips in his hives. He says that the ones that make it through the winter are the ones w/ the strips in them. The dead ones don't. I don't know if that's a good cause and effect assumption to make. I know it is against label recommendations. It does show up in his honey, but well below the tolerance level, extremely well below. According to the lab reports that I have seen.
Maybe you could clarify your poll, but it doesn't look like you are going to get much response more than what you have gotten. But don't let me discourage you.
Great idea. I'll give it a try...
I've never used it. The figures I would like to see would be the productivity (honey production and splits) and dead outs of those operations that recently started using Apistan (within the last year), those that have been using it for more than 5 years, and those that have never used it. I think that would yield some really useful information.
I'm honestly a bit surprised it's still available. Ignoring that mites were becoming increasingly resistant to it (which may be much less of a problem now that very few people use it to my knowledge), it has significant negative side affects that ultimately can lead to poorly mated queens and superceedure or hive failure.
“We found with some of the chemicals (specifically fluvalinate,
the active ingredient in Apistan) sperm reduction in
drones over 50 percent. We’ve not seen any significant effects
(of Apistan) on the queen.” - http://www.wasba.org/newsletters/0402news.pdf
Checkmite has similar issues:
"Drones exposed to coumaphos (recommended dose on the label) during development and sexual maturation had significantly reduced sperm viability which continued to decrease over a six week sampling period " - http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=626
I get why they were used originally, bees were dieing faster than we could breed them or come up with alternate methods. But at this point there are plenty of other management techniques and treatments that work as well as bees that seem to be at least more tolerant of varroa.
-Tim
“We found with some of the chemicals (specifically fluvalinate,
the active ingredient in Apistan) sperm reduction in
drones over 50 percent. We’ve not seen any significant effects
(of Apistan) on the queen.” - http://www.wasba.org/newsletters/0402news.pdf
Checkmite has similar issues:
"Drones exposed to coumaphos (recommended dose on the label) during development and sexual maturation had significantly reduced sperm viability which continued to decrease over a six week sampling period " - http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=626
I get why they were used originally, bees were dieing faster than we could breed them or come up with alternate methods. But at this point there are plenty of other management techniques and treatments that work as well as bees that seem to be at least more tolerant of varroa.
-Tim
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751 Posts
You can still get it because people will still buy it. It doesn't work round here but there are still people putting it in hives. A couple of years ago I acquired a hive with six strips in it, all linked together and apparently put in at the same time.
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