Waldemar wrote

>I've also heard that it should one treatment per queen.  In other words, subjecting a queen to more than 1 treatment, can affect her laying.  Some advocate re-queening annually for this reason.

Would you have any data for this. I have myself lots of quees that have been in hives for 2 treatments and can see no effects. Also have not seen anything hinting this in our data for 220 hives for 4 yeras. Even overdose or double tratments in fall  have not given damage to the queen. Only kills a lot of bees during the winter.

For some reason that no one knows the bees can not take 2 treatments in fall. But you can treat late fall and early spring with no bad effects. We have a researcher who has been doing this  for 3 years. It's the same bees because we have no brood during winter. Spring treatment must be done immideately after cleansing flight for the colonies to be with only minimal of brood. Here in the north bees don't fly out at all for 4 - 6 months.

But I would no recommend this yet. Better to treat only once and use some other kind of treatments to fill up if needed. But we do research because double tratement could be an favourite option for some beekeepers.


> It should be emphasized that the solution amount should be directly proportional to the number of bees covering the frame.  The full dose should applied to a bee space fully covered by bees.  If 60% of the space is covered with bees, apply only 60% of the dose.  (I had not made good approximation of the bee coverage and applied the full dose, I think, that's why had queen problems in the spring build-up.)  When in doubt err on the lighter side.  You will still kill a lot of varroa.

The statement abowe is the most important in drip method. You aim to hit  the bees with the solution and therefore you measure the amount acconding to the amount of bees - quite logical.

Vith vapour you try to fill all the hive therefore you need always same amount for the same hive no matter how many bees in hive.

When talking about speed, the drip method is faster unless you have a special automatic vapour machine that we have seen some Canadians to have. But these machines cost quite abit and the work reduction is not much if you don't have to open wraps around the hive. I have insulated hives so I only take lid off and drip. 1 - 2 minutes / hive including all work exept travel.

Just taking a big vapouraiser out of car  and pulling to the yard ( and back) , waiting for initial heat builup could take more time. Expecially here where we have 6 - 8 hives / yard.  But it's different if you have 30 - 100 hives / yard and wraps around.

Ari Seppälä
beekeeping advisor / beekeeper

Finland

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