The Oxalic Acid Treatment.

I seem to be running a bit late again, it's now Tuesday evening but this is Sunday's blip. We're coming up to AGM time again, I have three to concern myself with, and there are several other issues pending.

But today we were back giving bees their second varroa treatment of the winter. Four months ago they were dosed with formic acid which has the advantage that it kills mites sealed in with the pupating brood (their preferred habitat), this time it was oxalic acid which doesn't.

During winter there should be little, or no, sealed brood in the colony, so this medication is more effective than it would be at other seasons (although there are exceptions). It is important to keep changing the chemicals used so that the mites don't have the chance to develop a tolerance to any particular one. Your doctor uses a similar strategy when prescribing antibiotics, he will give you a cocktail of drugs, though they may be all in one type of pill, to prevent the disease organism evolving a resistance to any individual drug. It’s a technique known to beekeepers the world over as “integrated pest management.”
Would that they all practised it.

Out of shot are a crowd of wanabee beekeepers who are watching the mentor whose turn it happens to be to do the demonstration, he is being ably supervised by a mentor who didn't draw the short straw.