Apibioxal

solargain

Anybody giving apibioxal treatment at the moment

welsummer

I usually try and treat them between the 6th and the 12th of January

conor t

Plan to treat here in two time, no treatment given since last winter so might follow up with maqs in spring

brianmc

Going to stick the inspection trays in for a week shortly. I'm torn between apibioxal now or maqs in spring.

solargain

The problem with Maqs is you need a minimum of 6 frames of brood before you treat or it could wipe out your hive. If they are weak now from varroa , they may not survive the harsh treatment maqs gives

welsummer

I gave a poly nuc a quarter strip of MAQS about a week ago and had a fall of over 200 hundred mites. it was a nuc that was made up late in the year from several apideas and had got no treatment at all.

brianmc

solargain wrote: »

The problem with Maqs is you need a minimum of 6 frames of brood before you treat or it could wipe out your hive. If they are weak now from varroa , they may not survive the harsh treatment maqs gives

Yeah, the question is how heavy the infestation is. I managed to get away with treating with Apiguard in September/early October - the weather was kind to me. So the infestation may (should!?) be quite light.

In mid October I placed any half full (crystallised) supers under my hives hoping that they'd pull up the stores in the mild weather. I haven't removed the boxes since though. I'd prefer not to get apibioxal on those boxes if I can.

It's time to get the inspection trays ready...

solargain

Going on Mary Coffeys research ( see Jan Beachaire) Maqs or apiguard on its own won't do. I gave apiguard in August and I treated last week with apibioxal, getting a fairly high mite count now after treatment.I had trays in before I gave treatment & it looked like no mite drop , but about 100 a day now after treatment in some of my hives. I know you are saying you had supers underneath , there was no syrup came out on to the trays from the treatment I wouldn't be too worried about the super you are only giving 5ml per seam of bees and they will lick it up. If I were you I would treat

lucylu

Gave apibioxal treatment on Friday Lunch time it was mild and sunny via the trickling method.
Gave it to two hives and 1 nuc.

Knowall Macduff

had about two mites a day drop on hives that got either maqs or apiguard no great difference. so i treated all the wooden hives by vaporising and all the poly hives by trickling apibioxal, very substantial mite drop.

tmg52

I bought some MAQS late summer but didn't use it as I lost my queen late September, & advised to hold off, subsequently got a new queen, heard of issues using MAQS & advised to treat end Dec with OA instead. Now going to use OA Vaporizer even though some my consider it late as all should be done by end of Dec as being the optimum for this treatment.

What I would like to know is has any one made a home made Vaporizer, I would be interested in seeing the detail. The units are expensive to buy so I thought I would try this.
I seen it on another forum, get a 12 volt car/travel coffee cup heater (look on E-Bay) type that plugs into a cigarette lighter in a car. And use a 3/4 inch copper pipe end cap and form the heaters coil around the copper cap. When connected the cap heats up.
Also get a 1/2 inch copper end cap and solder on a handle to form a scoop to measure out the crystals.
To use it the end terminals are connected to to crocodile clips and connected to a 12 volt battery, when heated OA crystals vaporize in the formed dish. The treatment is for 2 1/2 Mins with battery powered on, a simple switch could be added to the cable for control. The Dave Cushman website has details on the treatment etc.