[David LaFerney]

The instructions for apiguard say to apply the second treatment 2 weeks after the first application.

My observations of hive behavior during treatments would seem to indicate that there are 3-4 days at the beginning when the treatment is pretty highly concentrated and causes a lot of bearding compared to untreated hives. I am making the (possibly incorrect) assumption that the maximum effect on mite health also happens during this time, and tapers off. After 2 weeks there is either nothing left of the treatment or it is completely encased in propolis - either way no longer having any apparent effect.

So, for some period of time (3-5 days I guess) the phoretic mites that would enter capped brood are either killed or compromised as well as any mites exiting the brood. So that would leave a few days worth of mites inside of capped brood when the treatment starts that exit after it is much less effective - and are therefore not effected.

So why not repeat the treatment in 4-5 days instead of 2 weeks? One answer is that it is less stressful on the bees to give them a break. Another possibility is that apiguard usually causes the queen to stop laying for a few days (it does) and the 2 week timing takes advantage of that... hadn't thought of that until just now, but it still seems like 2 weeks would be too long.

 

[wildbranch2007]

I plotted it last year trying to figure out when to put the second pad of Maqs on if you did one pad, followed by the second, and it came out to about 13 days. that was figuring that the Maqs were effective for 3 days, which in warm weather is about what Apiguard is effective for. If I can find the sheet of paper, I did it for workers not drones, I'll post it but it may not make to much sense as my drawing was vertical and I'm not sure how to write that?

 

[wildbranch2007]

here is my unofficial/home baked calculations if I can get them to be some what readable, hate to say I would have scanned them and then posted, but it seems the cat had a fur ball, and well I just can't/wouldn't try and scan them.

days of a worker
123 456789 101112 13 1415161718 192021

a+b___b_____e____e____e_________ a+b

a= the three days of apiguard or single MAQ pad being effective
b= the mites that are on the bees or in the cells are killed. not that at day 9 they are sealing the cell

c= these cells start hatching after the effective gases are gone, not shown but it's day 18.

e= the second dose kills all the mites that have hatched from sealed brood. using the information below, ie they don't reenter for 5-7 days and some brood is killed.

Info from Rany Olivers articles.
-70% of the mites are in the sealed brood- days 10-18 above when first pad on
- mites reenter brood from 5-7 days after hatching(I have heard varying numbers on this)
-trial temps max. for Randy's test was mid 70's
-there was some brood losses in treated hives(I can't say how much but I use this as hoping the day 13 treatment will get most of the mites in the drones)
- using Maqs but not necessarily Apiguar, the q's shutdown for 4-5 days so this also takes care of the mites on drones.
- Randy said that the 1 strip test killed 91% of the mites in the hive, but later found mite counts higher. that's why I went with the second strip.

From Canada test- they found that a 2 strip test killed 80 percent of the mites under the capped brood.

as I suspect the a's and b's etc got shifted left will put in place holders and save