[username00101]

I received the easy vap from Johno quickly and easily - looks like a great product.

QUESTIONS:

1. What brand of oxalic acid do you folks recommend using?

2. How much oxalic acid do you folks recommend using exactly for a standard 2 deep brood box hive?

3. Where do you folks recommend drilling the hole to insert this device? Do I just drill a hole at the top of the lower brood box, around the top of the frames?

4. How many times throughout the year to treat if I have, say 40 hives? I don't have time to do mite counts for all 40 hives, so I just need to know when to treat.

5. If treating during brood period, is it recommended to treat once every FIVE DAYS, or once every SEVEN Days? I've read that I need to treat 3 times, once every 5 or 7 days.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

[mcon672]

1 savogran wood bleach

2 1 gram per box so double deep 2 grams or half teaspoon. I sometimes go a little heavy with no ill effects.

3 that's where I drill mine

4 I treat in late June or early July when supers come off, again in September when fall supers come off and the a single treatment as close to winter solstice as possible. Sometimes a bonus single shot around Thanksgiving. That works for my area.

5 I treat 5 times every 5 days. The 3 times every 7 wasn't enough.

 

[crofter]

It is not a big deal to have one or two hives on screened bottom to check occasionally for mite drop and then use that to determine whether you treat them all. Also uncap and pull some drone brood. If no mites in drones your worker cell bees will be good to go.

I believe Randy Oliver of Scientific Beekeeping is one of the advocates of 5 doses of OAV at 5 day intervals. The 3 at 7 day intervals may have been a bit optimistic when approval was being sought. Personally I would continue treatments at 5 day intervals till the mite drops are insignificant. If you are getting indrift from surrounding bees you may be treating them too It is what it is.

If you are using one of the external band heater devices you can easily get time down to less than a minute per colony.

 

[Kuro]

I’m in Zone 8 and my bees have a rather short winter brood break and no summer brood break.

1 savogran wood bleach

2 2 grams or half teaspoon for double deeps. Like mcon672, I sometimes used more without problems.

3 I use a classic wand-type vaporizer, so I insert it into the bottom entrance.

4 I treat in December-January (weekly until mite stops dropping, usually 2 - 4 times), and whenever a hive becomes broodless after split. I do not use OAV during brood period.

5 I would treat 5 times every 5 days, at least, although it did not work very well in my hands (August in Zone 8). That year, mite loads subsequently got quite high by October and at that point even 8 times every 3 days did not work. So I use formic acid during brood period.

 

[crofter]

If the mites are coming in on the bees you have to continue treating them till the numbers drop. Formic acid wont prevent mites from being brought in either. It will get to all your current mites including ones in capped brood, but in most places August is too hot for formic acid.

 

[Kuro]

If the mites are coming in on the bees you have to continue treating them till the numbers drop. Formic acid wont prevent mites from being brought in either. It will get to all your current mites including ones in capped brood, but in most places August is too hot for formic acid.

Yes, my OAV treatment failure in August may partly be due to re-infestation; in the following year, I did Formic in a relatively cool week of August, but one of my hives apparently got re-infested (although it was not as bad as the previous year). Because I did not want to go thorugh many OAVs anymore (even though I only had 2 hives, not 40 like the OP), I just gave apivar to both hives, which worked fine. I know other people can manage their apiaries just by doing OAV (or not treating at all), but I have not been able to do so, so far.

 

[crofter]

I had no other bees within flying distance for 4 or 5 years and once I got my levels down to virtually zero it did not take much to keep them there. Apivar is very effective in the reinfestation kind of scenario. Apparently resistance can make it lose its effectiveness so it is good to use other methods in rotation.

If a person wanted to play with it on just a few hives there are formic evaporators that do a gradual release of about 15 ml. a day over a ten day period but that is for died in the wool tinkers and dabbers! Once I started with OAV I havent looked back though.