Hi Everyone,
Brian asked about oxytetracycline products to use for honey bee disease
treatments.  The various formulations available can be rather confusing
but there are a few things to watch for to insure that you get the
proper doseage.
First make sure the product is a water soluable formulation.
Formulations with things like rice hulls that are not water soluable
will not work for bees because they will simply remove the junk from the
hive.
Second carefully read what the concentration of antibiotic is in the
product.  Formulations vary considerably in the concentration of
oxytetracycline in the mix.  You need an end dose of 200 mg per
application per colony.  This is usually given in about 2 tablespoons of
powdered sugar sprinkled on the top bars of the brood chamber of
chambers.  TM 25 has 25 grams OTC per pound but it is sold in 6.4 oz
foil packs.  Each such pack contains 10 grams of OTC and when mixed with
a 2 pound bag of powdered sugar will give the correct dose when 2 - 3
tablespoons are applies per colony.  Do also note that one treatment
consists of three such applications 7 - 10 days apart.

Brian, you need to know the actual amount of OTC in that package to
calculate how much should be mixed with powdered sugar to give the
correct doseage of 200 mg per colony per application.  1 gm = 1000mg.
If you mix the amount of that formulation that contains 10 gms of OTC
with a 2 pound bag of powdered sugar your mix will be about right.

Hope this helps but it can get rather confusing with all the various
formulations out there.  If you have further questions you can email me
directly.

blane


******************************************
Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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