Oxalic Acid and New/Virgin Queens

[Neils]

Just wondering what people's thoughts are on the merits or otherwise of treating an Artificial swarm with Oxalic Acid. This colony is struggling at the moment with a lot of bees showing Deformed wings. We've culled drone brood and applied icing sugar continually every inspection for the past month or so with limited effect.

We treated the queen side of the AS with OA as there w.as no brood and now that most of the brood in the other half has emerged was debating the pros and cons of treating that side with OA given that there is an unmated queen (hopefully) in there somewhere and whether it's a wise idea to apply OA to queen not yet in lay,

[Rosie]

Nellie,

How about waiting for eggs to appear before applying the acid? For my part I stopped using apistan about 5 years ago so I use it now for emergencies only. It seems to have a useful effect if used infrequently enough and only on the odd colony.

Rosie

[Jon]

I agree with Steve. I wouldn't mess around until the queen is laying. You should still have several days to take action between spotting eggs/larvae and the first brood getting sealed.

[Neils]

Yep, was thinking that at the point there are some eggs that it might be the best time to consider it.

I do have apistan on the way to act as an emergency treatment but as I view it as a per Apiary treatment I'm trying not to use it if I don't have to, but it does look clear that this colony isn't coping too well with the mites at the moment, there's a lot of DWV and K-wing still in the colony. Hopefully the icing sugar and OA will knock enough mites off for them to recover.

[Jon]

The Oxalic should help as it is very effective when applied during a broodless period but any serious research I have read about icing sugar suggests that it has very little positive effect if any.

[Neils]

I'm in two minds on icing sugar. Last I read it does have an effect in keeping mite numbers down, but only while it's being applied. I've not got a link to hand but i was told that the fewer mites there are in a colony the higher the rate at which they breed.

The upshot us that while you continuously apply icing sugar it can help keep mite numbers down but, come end of the year, once you stop applying it mite numbers rapidly bounce back to a point they'd be at if you never used the stuff.

Part of me still questions the wisdom of keeping this colony going at all to be honest. It's been treated the same as the others and is the only one struggling.

[Jon]

I think using icing sugar keeps the beekeeper happy rather than the bees.
With a colony like this, you could try and save it and then requeen it with a daughter queen from one of your better colonies.

[The Drone Ranger]

Nellie

although the treatment was the same it still might have been less effective
I would treat them and feed them till there are enough bees with wings :)
If the colony collapses the varroa will be in your other hives in no time.
Lets give bees a chance (everybody sing along now)
I think merangues would be a better use of the icing sugar

[Jon]

I think merangues would be a better use of the icing sugar

Crumbled over the top bars?

[Adam]

I used Oxalic on two swarms this year. One swarm my own (missed queencell) the other a caught one which I knew had a high mite load. Both had virgin queens. I saw no real reaction from the bees - maybe one had some bees outside the hive for a couple of days. Both the queens are laying. One very well from my own colony, the other flew back into a queenless mini-nuc instead of her 5 frame nuc and is laying but she is quite small.

So my experience of two treatments is favourable. I can't do a mite count in either hive so I'm not sure if to use Apiguard in August or not.