Saturday, December 14, 2019

WHAT CAN BE A POSSIBLE REASON FOR THE INEFFICIENCY OF TREATEMENT OF BEES WITH FORMIC OR OXALIC ACID, USING THE METHOD OF SUBLIMATION.




More and more often, in social networks can be seen such posts -

"I am processing bees with oxalic acid (sublimation)"

"Checking our inspection boards after the oxalic vape. We have observed 0 varroa drop on both test colonies and 0 from the control. Not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed..."

I want to answer to such posts... Dear friends, you should be disappointed...  

This suggests, that your treatement was not effective. The probability, that the bee
family has absolutely no Varroa mites is very poor today. Therefore, with a high degree of probability we can talk about the inefficiency of the method of treating bees by sublimation of oxalic or formic acid, and the popularity of this method is caused only by its minimal complexity!

What is the reason for this ... Everything is quite simple ... the bees are able to regulate air exchange in the hive and are able to defend themselves from unwanted influences.

Oxalic (or formic) acid does not act selectively on the mites, or on the bees, or on human. It acts on everyone equally negatively. Just a bee is much larger than a mite and its body is partially protected by hairs. BUT the bee’s breathing system is open just like a mite's, and just like a human’s. Therefore, the bees also suffers from acid, although weaker. How much weaker is the question of dosage. The bees closest to the evaporator definitely die as well as the mites ... An acid treatment burns the trachea and their entire respiratory system ... A terrible and painful death ...

Even in conditions when there are no such effects as acid treatment, the bees protect the inside part of the cluster or of the nest, creating a “crust” from their bodies around it.  And a fortiori, they do this, when there is a threat of poisoning by acid fumes...  Bees are perfectly able to regulate the air flows in the hive. They can let fresh air to move into the brood "streets" for aeration, they can remove moist air when they are “drying” honey, and they can block its passage in the places, where they consider its passage not necessary. In the course of our experiments with the new hive, we clearly became convinced of this ...

Secondly... treatments of this type are made at a time, when the brood is no longer exists in the nest
of bees, since if there is a brood, most of the mites are in it and such treatment will not help to kill it, and an open brood will be damaged for sure ... This means, that if one make such kind of treatement, the honey collection is already finished and most bees are in the hive. Moreover, as we already wrote, on the periphery of the nest, most of all, are placed  old worker bees, creating a “peel” from their bodies, which not only protects the nest, but also heats it.

Thus, summing up all the reasons, it can be argued, that when we use sublimated acids, treating our bees, we get their reciprocal response. As soon as the outer "layer" of the bees feels the influence of acid fumes, they most likely completely block  access of the air inside the "streets" between the frames, where the young bees and the queen are located. But the last mites of the season can mainly be found exactly on young bees ... Thus, only bees,  which create a protective “peel” from their bodies , will be treated when you use of such method... And this is not so much ... most of the bees will remain untreated by the pairs of acid, and most of the mites will not suffer from such a treatment. This is why, we do not see such huge mite's  drop,  as we would like ...

Thus, it seems, that the classical method of applying formic and oxalic acids in the form of spraying bees, is much more effective, although much more time-consuming ... With this treatment, not only a strong drop of the mites is observed, but also it does not cause so much damage to the bees, because the acid in this treatment is used with dilution. But it is the concentration of any poison, that determines its lethal effect.

As a result, we can assume, that the popularity of this method was created by the laziness of beekeepers and competent advertising campaign of manufacturers of devices such as VARROJET and similar ones ...

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Have a look    https://twitter.com/i/status/1204343909977120768

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