I've received several e-mail off BEE-L about sugar rolls and using 10x
powdered sugar as an alternate vorroa mite treatment.  Thank you, everyone, for the
information.  But I think my point was lost, I'll try to further explain what
I'm driving at.

When I am treating a nest of yellowjackets, Hornets or Wasps with a dust
pesticide, the method involved is to use as little pesticide as possible, to cover
as many insects and as much brood as possible with as little material as
possible.  To dump a pile of dust inside the nest opening is ineffective and a
waste as the insects will go to lengths to work around it and not get any on
themselves.

IMO, dumping 1/2 pound of 10x powdered sugar on the top bar would be a wasted
effort and a waste of material.  It seems to me that little sugar would get
on the backs of the bees where it will do some good, most will just get damp
from the humidity, clump up and be useless as a treatment.  The piles of sugar
would just be consumed by the bees, as they work from the edges of the piles
in, without much getting on them.

The point I was driving at was the method of treatment, which I will try
myself this year.  If I want to treat bees with powdered sugar, I would want to
use as little as possible and apply it as quickly and easily as I could.  The
object is to cover the bees to make the mites release.  I do this I would apply
it with very little sugar and a whole lot of air to spread it around.

For a few hives, a simply bulb duster should work fine, a couple of puffs of
the bottom board, a few heavy puffs under the inner cover.  The bees leaving
the hive should be white from the sugar.  For several to hundreds of hives (or
thousands) there are larger dusters and power dusters available that would
better suited to the job.

While dusting with sugar will not be a cure for the problem, if what everyone
sent me is accurate, it seems dusting could certainly buy some time between
treatments.

Jim Hock
Wethersfield, CT

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