Didn't mean to offend, Allen! You had certainly vented, hence the humorous
volcano comparison (as you will remember, you pointed out humor a couple of
weeks ago), but didn't intend to compare you to any family pet (you are far
to ornery to be a family pet). I don't post to the List to get into
meaningless arguments--I contribute to the list so that I can learn about
beekeeping, and so others get accurate information, which sometimes
involves the questioning of previous posts.
>was just speaking to a commercial operator with 25,000 hives who uses only
> a single treatment of thymol each year by running Russian stock.
>
Would like to correct myself--I checked back--he only runs 12,000 hives.
But my point was that he runs enough hives that he gets some credibility
from me. As confirmation of the efficacy of Russians at controlling mites,
when I checked one of my test yards of 30 Russian colonies this fall, each
having been treated previously with once with MAQS (single strip) this
summer, the results confirm--both stickyboard counts and mite washes
indicated that mite levels were acceptable in about 20 of the hives. And
in the 10 that had higher levels, most appeared to be handling just fine.
In only one hive was DWV an evident problem.
>Not idealistic? Back in the day apistan was cheap, fast and effective.
> Hard for me to believe formic, oxalic & thymol (with all their application
> issues involving temp & labor) takes less time and costs less.
>
The same question was raised when I spoke with beekeepers in New Zealand,
when Apistan started to fail. Yes, hard to believe until you do the math:
As the effectiveness of fluvalinate decreased, beekeepers were treating
twice a year with Apistan. This took 4 openings of the hive, and the time
to either insert or remove the two strips, which was often frustrating. We
figure that it costs us about $1 in labor each time we open a hive. The
hassle of breaking apart the strips and then the hassles of inserting or
removing increased by at least another half dollar. So the 4 openings cost
roughly $6 per hive per year, plus the roughly $2 per strip x 4 = another
$8. So total of $14 per year with Apistan, plus mite levels get
uncomfortably high between treatments.
On the other hand, when I spoke, I was using Apiguard (thymol) and oxalic
dribble (now have added formic). We got by with three Apiguard treatments
a season, and one oxalic dribble. The Apiguard treatments were piggybacked
on normal hive openings, so really no labor, but let's say $1 per treatment
in labor any way, and 75 cents each for the 25-g treatment that we use. So
total for Apiguard was $5.25.
The oxalic dribble took an opening (again, piggybacked on normal November
hive check), and 10 seconds to apply (one second per seam of bees), and
cost pennies. But let's still say another dollar.
So total labor and materials per hive for mite management with Apiguard and
oxalic was $6.25, as compared to $14 with Apistan (or $7 if Apistan were
used only once a year). A savings in my book, hard and practical.
So how about the guys using Tactik? The ones that I know treat at least 4
times a year. With prep time and cost of material, and 4 hive openings, is
comparable in cost to my treatments above. I do not keep bees at hobby
scale. I keep track of costs in labor and materials. I manage my
operation for profitability. I consider it to be a fortunate coincidence
that the organic acids and thymol are cost effective for practical, as
opposed to idealistic reasons.
> After being burned twice when synthetics suddenly failed due to mite
> resistance
> >PPB is *in my opinion* the above.
>
I am the Pissest Poor beekeeper you will ever meet! But that is not the
issue here.
>I have never saw synthetics *suddenly fail*.
Bob, by your own admission you have also never seen CCD! But Apistan
indeed failed suddenly in California and many other places. We saw warning
signs, and I switched to Coumaphos the year that it failed completely. My
wife ran 100 hives at the time (we were not yet together) and tried to go
with Apistan for another year. She lost virtually all. So by my
definition, if a product goes from adequate control one season, to complete
failure the next, that would qualify as "suddenly fail."
>I am not trying to piss Randy off
Thanks for that Bob--no one should post to the List if they are pissed off!
I appreciate your questioning, as it allows us to further discuss a topic,
and in the above case, replace opinion with hard math.
>
> >Formic, oxalic and thymol were around and in use in Europe before apistan
> was ever used in the U.S.. What is new about those products and why did you
> not use first?
>
I was as ignorant as most American beekeepers. When I finally started to
educate myself, I was amazed to find that European beekeepers were way
ahead of us. When I visited New Zealand a couple of years ago, Apistan was
just starting to fail, and the talk was all about resistant mites. For me
it was like going back in time!
>
> >Healthy bees today is a problem.
I think that we are all in agreement on that! : )
> >Today's commercial beekeeping industry is sustained by being able to stay
> ahead of problems with constant splitting.
>
I wrote about this in April 2009: "As I question successful commercial
beekeepers on aspects of their management of varroa, one common practice
stands out: the breaking of the brood cycle to interrupt mite reproduction.
The most common method of breaking the brood cycle is by making splits, or
by shaking (or purchasing) packages."
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-learning-curve-part-1-2009-progress-report/
I've also elaborated on why splits are so effective at
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-12-varroa-management-getting-down-to-brass-tacks/
Sincerely,
Randy Oliver
Piss Poor Beekeeper
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