[Pooh Bear]

Does anyone do August OAV treatments (assuming sublimation) with a brood break for 21 days to maximize it effectiveness?

 

[Dan the bee guy]

My plan for this year.
Use vaporisor this spring to minimize the mites before the flow.
At the end of flow , around August 1 ,fine the queen put her in a nuc with no brood, treat the nuc week to 10 days later.
Watch the queen cells choose the biggest make more nucs or just let the hive requeen itself.
Treat main hive at 21 and 28 days.
If nucs are made with brood treat like the main hive.
Please tell me if I missed something

 

[Pooh Bear]

The only concern I would have is making sure that the nuc has enough resources to get thru the winter since it is being started late. If you can pull a few frames of honey from other hives to bolster it then I would say this is a good pla

 

[enjambres]

In August, in both WI or NY, just choose a week when the temps are OK and put some MAQS in the hive. Problem solved without all the manipulations (and attendant risks). And make your nucs early enough so that they are strong and well-supplied by winter.

I think you are confabulating two different sorts of mite treatments: brood breaks as a primary, non-chemical mite suppression tactic and OAV treatment when the colony is otherwise broodless for another reason.

That seems to be working harder than necessary. (And I am big fan of OAV.)

MAQS uses another kind of organic acid treatment, and it has two advantages over OAV during the summer: it kills mites under the brood cappings and it can be on the hie at the same time as honey supers. It has a slightly higher risk to queens than OAV. (To be fair OAV has NO known risk to queens, so MAQS slightly higher risk means higher compared to none, but not necessarily high all by itself.) You mitigate that risk by using a single strip dose, and by choosing a week when the temps will not exceed 80 F (so keep the temps in the lower acceptable range). I have used both the two- and one- strips MAQS treatments with no queen loss, but I am very careful about temps. And if done in the summer, even queen loss can be recovered from without too much trouble.

Enjambres

 

[Dan the bee guy]

I was worried about queen loss useing MAQS in August because of temp plus I'm starting with just a few hives and OAV looked like the best option. You gave me something to think about if I increase hive numbers.

 

[enjambres]

Well, I use both OAV and MAQS, depending on the season.

In WI you should be able to find a week around that time when the daytime highs, particularly in the first three or four days of the treatment-week are not likely to be higher than 80-82F and use MAQS. Without the need to have the supers off, you have a lot of flexibility to choose when. You can use the alternate dosing of just a single strip to give the mites a needed whack-down, with a bit less risk of queen issues. It can be repeated a month or so later with another single strip, as needed. (You need to be faithful, as with any treatment, about monitoring afterward to make sure you get - and keep - the mite levels you want to see.)

Then a round of OAV after the supers are off to clean up any late, robbing- or drifting-promoted upsurge, followed by a single, final broodless-period OAV in Dec. and you will likely see what I am seeing now: almost no mites at all through next spring's build-up. (But keep monitoring, just the same!)

Although almost no one is seeing a problem with them any longer, MAQS also swats down tracheal mites.

Enj.