# OAV mite drop



## RAK (May 2, 2010)

Which means that FGMO doesn't do much for the mites.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

Wow, that is amazing.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Hi Glock
Thanks for the update.

A few questions

Did you do a wash after the 3 OAV treatments to see how effective they were?
Are you planning on doing one after this treatment to test this brood less treatment?

I too have treated with OAV and fogging with Thymol FGMO. So the info you share is extremely interesting to me. That OAV kills mites is clear, but this may perhaps show that 7 day cycle is not as effective as it needs to be. I have read that the phoretic stage of a female mite is between 4.5 and 11 days. Is this true? if so maybe treating twice a week would produce better results.

Thanks again.

Stephen


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

GLOCK - Thanks for continuing to report on your previous FGMO fogging and your continuing OAV treatments. 

That is a huge mite drop considering that you had already treated the generally recommended 3 times. It would be interesting to see if you get a similar mite drop if you treat a 5th time.

Also, I wonder how frequently a person can treat a hive with oxalic acid before the OA starts to cause more harm than benefits to the hive.


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## Gord (Feb 8, 2011)

I have read that the phoretic stage of a female mite is between 4.5 and 11 days.
Stephen[/QUOTE]

When I fog with FGMO and wintergreen, I fog twice weekly.
The once weekly thing seemed too long a time in between.

That's one hell of a pile of mites you got, Glock.
Gonna give them some more OAV?
You should post pictures of the same bottom boards after the next treatment.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

Wow. Did you count em? What were your drop rates before and after vaporizing?

If you can wait until middle of winter you will kill nearly every mite since they are all phoretic. Its important to break up the winter cluster somewhat for vapor penetration, fan driven heat gun vaps are better at this than the glow plug style. I've never tried this, just from reading.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Right around Thanksgiving is a great time to do those final Oxalic Vapor Treatments. The hives are mostly broodless, there is no need to open the hive, you just slip the vaporizer in the front entrance and fog. Not opening the hives is a big advantage in fogging as it is almost effortless.

Larry


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

snl said:


> Right around Thanksgiving is a great time to do those final Oxalic Vapor Treatments.
> 
> Larry


That is what I had planed . I just got done doing 4 dbl. deeps and 6 dbl. nucs. I know the queens are slowing down laying eggs. I have 3 hives that did not drop any mites this year but the rest where mite bombs waiting to blow OAV has saved a few hives for me i'm sure . I guess I will see come spring. last year I did not treat and had 19 hives going in to winter and 10 left in the spring. This year I have 25 and all are healthy and heavy last year I was not as smart as I am this year  I will post some more pics in a day or 2
It takes a couple of days before the mites really start falling. I think OAV is worth checking out.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

Glock
You have motivated me to hit the hives with another round of OAV today. Thank you very much for sharing your findings and insight, in sharing you have provided a valuable service to us all. :applause:


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

snl said:


> Right around Thanksgiving is a great time to do those final Oxalic Vapor Treatments. The hives are mostly broodless, there is no need to open the hive, you just slip the vaporizer in the front entrance and fog. Not opening the hives is a big advantage in fogging as it is almost effortless.
> 
> Larry


I got a vaporizer and experienced local beeks said to treat in dec.


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

Stephenpbird said:


> Hi Glock
> Thanks for the update.
> 
> A few questions
> ...


I do not want to dig into the hives any more this year so the A.WASH is out plus the why I see it it is what it is it don't matter what the counts are now the only thing I can really do is what i'm doing .
I do not have DWV or any virus at all and every hive seems healthy and queen right as of 2 week ago.
As far as treating go's I'D say watch your mite louds and treat as needed and at the end of the year treat when your brood less the only reason my VARROA loads where high is because I was trying Fogging with FGMO and the mite where building even with fogging but I did alcohol washes in mid JULY and started OAV by AUG. and been dropping mites ever since.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

WBVC said:


> I got a vaporizer and experienced local beeks said to treat in dec.


Over winter do one treatment when your colonies are broodless, usually some time between Thanksgiving & Christmas. This knocks out most of the phoretic mites before the queen starts laying again.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Is there a minimum daytime high temperature required to treat with OAV? 50*F for the cluster to break? Higher? Lower?


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

For a single winter treatment when the colony is broodless try to wait for a warm spell. If the bees are out flying and taking cleansing flights the cluster is loose and you will get the best coverage. 50 deg F, plus or minus, is probably a good target temperature. If you vaporize when the cluster is tight it might not cover all the bees and would be less effective.


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## cristianNiculae (Jul 2, 2013)

Hi,

I did 3 OAV rounds in September being broodless on the last 2. I had mites falling after each one of them(~30/day). I'm quite sure that OAV doesn't kill all mites and therefore needs to be repeated(how often I don't know). It very much depends on the way it spreads inside the hive and if the bees are tightly clustered we have a problem.
It would probably be a good idea to force the vapors into the hive with a low speed fan(how about an air compressor?).

Cristian


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## merince (Jul 19, 2011)

Nice pile


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## EVOstrowski (Oct 1, 2013)

Don't mean to be a true rookie but what is OAV? I've been trying to find out about it but haven't had any luck.


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## DPBsbees (Apr 14, 2011)

Oxalic Acid Vaporization


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Wow Glock, when you bought your OA, the brand wasn't called "Placebo brand, Immitation OA" was it? Hard to believe your treatments are being effective.
Too bad there isn't a market for MITES! HA! You'd be in

I guess what I want to know is, did you moniter your mite drop Before treatment? If so, do you see a significant increase in drop after treatment? If you did not do a drop count before treatment, how do you know your method or dosage is correct and effective? The drop you see could be a natural drop as brood rearing is decreased.

Thanks for the updates.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

EVOstrowski said:


> Don't mean to be a true rookie but what is OAV? I've been trying to find out about it but haven't had any luck.


Do a search here on Beesource as there is a ton of information regarding OAV. It's an awesome tool in the fight against mites....


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

I don't want to say it's great or any thing but it sure did drop the VARROA for me and I have not lost any hives this year so I'm happy with it so far. We will see come spring . I have only tried fogging with FGMO before OAV and that didn't work now OAV did well you see the pics.:thumbsup:


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

For what its worth…

I got an OA vaporizer last week. And tested it on a couple of dozen hives. Half had screened bottoms. All were treated with Apiguard last September. These hives were from the ‘dregs’ of last spring’s nucs. Each had had some sort of problem..typically queens…some supercedures, some ‘lost’ during mating and the like. I keep them in a yard where I can nurture them and by season’s end they had recovered, built and provisioned their nests and gone into cold weather with healthy clusters. My point is that when treated in September most had relatively low mite loads, in part from brood breaks and the like.

At day five, after OA the drops range from around thirty (pretty much what I’d hoped to see) to a couple of hundred mites dropped. There were actually four hives that dropped over a hundred. And those are only counting the hives with screened bottoms.

So…yeah….it knocks down mites and I’ll get into my other beeyards over the next couple of weeks and do them.


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## Danpa14 (Jun 12, 2013)

Glock, What is your plan for the hives that had the high mite loads next spring? Continue treating, new queen or what?


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## DPBsbees (Apr 14, 2011)

Danpa14 said:


> Glock, What is your plan for the hives that had the high mite loads next spring? Continue treating, new queen or what?


I wont speak for Glock, but any of my hives that wind up with persistent high varroa counts get re-queened with a VSH queen.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

The closest we get to a broodless period here in North Florida is right after Thanksgiving making it a good time for a dribble or OAV. The Maples have already started blooming now and the queens have really picked up the past two weeks. 

I wonder if this just proves that even 3 treatments a week apart may not be good enough if you still have brood in the hive.


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## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

johng said:


> I wonder if this just proves that even 3 treatments a week apart may not be good enough if you still have brood in the hive.


I have found that three treatments, five days apart, to be more effective when brood is present.


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

I plan on doing alcohol washes on all hives right before the main flow and see witch hives have high mite loads and treat the ones that need it. I plan on working with what I have and see witch hives are dealing with VARROA and go from there . I have 25 hives and some didn't not have high mite loads in the fall but all had mite. this is only the end of my 4th year and the bee yards are well stocked with healthy bees and lots of equipment now it's time to play. I am going to sale a few nucs this year and try to have 25 nucs by fall and run 7 production hive through the 2014 flow. I am going to test for hygiene and re queen all hives that need it all my hives are last year queens breed from my strongest hives so this coming year is going to be fun to keep good records so some day my queens will be worth selling and making nucs watching mite loads see witch hives build up fast and are making lots of honey and deal with VARROA all goals.
My bees come from 2 different bee breeders that breed for VARROA resistance and every thing I have comes from over winter stock from my bee yards .


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

beekuk said:


> I have found that three treatments, five days apart, to be more effective when brood is present.


That makes good sense from what I've observed. The thing about OAV is that it doesn't seem to have much of an effect past the actual treatment - so any of the mites which are not actually phoretic and in the hive when you do the deed probably survive. But it works great during broodless periods especially.

That's why it is important to learn about when and how to use all of the options. To everything there is a season...


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Are you guys use just generic wood bleach or some other form of OA??


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

gmcharlie said:


> Are you guys use just generic wood bleach or some other form of OA??


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## Steves1967 (May 16, 2012)

Glock, you already talked me into using OA, and thank you sir! But capitalizing VARROA!!! In every use is like a visual punch in the mouth man!


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## Satch (Aug 15, 2012)

What was the temperature when you did the fogging


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

Steves1967 said:


> Glock, capitalizing VARROA!!! In every use is like a visual punch in the mouth man!


Well it should be VARROA is a punch in a beekeepers mouth they are tough . I mean that in the nicest way


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

One post mentioned screened BB? do you normaly close those up or??


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Yes, you close them up. Does not have to be perfect........ slide in some heavy duty aluminum foil (or flashing) and block entrance with old shirt, towel, whatever..........


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

GLOCK said:


>


I got this mother-in-law that looks.........


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## chris bright (Feb 20, 2012)

Hi Gord, How much wintergreen do you add to the FGMO? and is this a liquid or another form ? Thanks for any help you can offer. I feel that FGMO and essential oils must be effective if the method and frequency is correct. Once a week by some accounts is not often enough? Cheers Chris Bright


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