Greetings,

I am thinking about oxytetracycline treatments for hives that shows AFB in late summer/fall.

For what I can find in literature, it is recommended to give 3 treatments of oxytetracycline in fall, and some more the following spring, alongside with shaking bees and destroying infected material. But given that in the north we feed a lot of sugar syrup to our hives in fall in order to have them overwinter with sufficient provisions for the 6-7 months of winter, how effective is really the treatment ? I mean, by giving OT in syrup (or by dusting), we want the bees to give it to the larvae while feeding them. But in fall, when we feed 5 to 8 gallons of syrup to the bees, how can we be sure that the OT will reach the brood before it becomes inactive in the syrup. I tend to think that the little volume of syrup with OT in it will be stored with the rest of the provisions and not readily be fed to the brood.

Assuming that I am right, it would be better to treat at the same day you take off the last honey supers, before feeding the gallons of syrup for their winter stores. But if you want to treat 3 times, waiting 5 to 10 days between each treatment, yoou wont be able to feed the bees before 2-3 weeks, a time that we cannot afford up North.

So bearing with this idea, should it be advisable to treat just once in fall, the day you take off the last honey super, but a couple of days before feeding syrup to the bees, than treating 3 times the next spring, when there is little nectar, so the OT would reach the brood easily ?

Your comments would be appreciated

Thanks


Dr Hugo Tremblay, m.v.
Jonquière, Québec

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