# Quick mite treatment



## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

Powdered sugar.


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## MIKI (Aug 15, 2003)

Thats a good answer but I bet your next question is how to apply it. Get a plastic bottle and drill a bunch of small holes in it fill it about 1/4 with powdered sugae (confectioners sugar) right off the supermarket shelf. shake the bottle untill you get a cloud going. hold the bottle at such an angle that you dont spray a stream of sugar directly on the bees just squeez the bottle and dust the bees with the cloud. Works great, what you have is called a varroa blaster invented by our own Dennis Murrell for more indepth info see his web site at http://bwrangler.litarium.com/varroa-blaster/


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## oregonsparkie (Apr 12, 2004)

Very interesting link. Thank you very much. None of my hives have a screened bottom board. This that required for this treatment??


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

[No message]


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

I tried the powdered sugar blaster when Dennis first desribed it on Bee-l on a yard of 36 hives that were badly infested.It knocked enough mites down to buy time for an apistan treatment,but was way too labor intensive for me to want to do it again.For a hive or two it would be practical,but follow up treatments are a must.I dont have screened bottoms either.Someone from Cal.in another post on here decribes a method of brushing a half pound of powdered sugar on the top bars and letting it sift down between the combs.That would certainly be much faster than pulling out each comb.


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## oregonsparkie (Apr 12, 2004)

In reading a link from one of the previous post it said that powder sugar killed mites, practically on contact..... WHY??


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

Powdered sugar or other dusts cause cuticle abrasion and dessiccation.


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## briancady413 (Dec 8, 2003)

I thought powdered sugar has FGMO in it to keep it powdered, and that FGMO suffocates mites but not bees. How does it work?


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

Powdered sugar has cornstarch in it.That is supposed to be detrimental to bees.But in small quantities it seems to do no harm.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> Powdered sugar or other dusts cause cuticle 
> abrasion and dessiccation.

Where did that come from?

The only action I have ever heard of from
powdered sugar has been the clogging of the
tarsal pads on the mites, causing them to
loose their grip, and fall through one's
screened bottom and/or onto one's sticky
board.


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## mark williams (Jan 19, 2003)

What happened to the powdered sugar & garlic powder,that some was using afew years back?


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

>dessication
Page 202, last paragraph in "Mites of the Honey Bee"


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Brother Allen,
You have lot more patience than I do!
Also, after 4 years of powdered suger research, I wish i had contacted you first cause you confirm our findings.
Varroa desicates and perishes within hours when entrapped in a body of powdered sugar.
In certain temperature and humidity combinations they die within minutes.
I enjoy reading your thoughtful posts!
Harry


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

Thanks Harry. I've shaken bees into a large (say 24 inches or so each dimmension) cardboard box, poured powdered sugar on them, and then rolled the box around--you know like shake'n'bake. The bees didn't care much for it, but it was fun watching them come flying out looking like bee ghosts. In the bottom of the box, mixed in with the powdered sugar were loads and loads of mites; most of them had already become ghosts.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>What happened to the powdered sugar & garlic powder,that some was using afew years back?

There is a beekeeper around here who uses it and says it works well. But I figure the powdered sugar arleady works, so why wouldn't it work? And plain powdered sugar SMELLS so much better. and wouldn't hurt the honey any.


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## 2rubes (Apr 28, 2005)

Hi, I'm been posting all over. The powder sugar works and you really do not have to take apart your hives and dust all the frames. I just pour 1/2 pound on top of my stacked broad supers and brush it in through the frames. I'm finding it very important to clean the sugar out after 24 hours or it turns to icing and I'm worried about reinfesting the bees. (the mites are still alive and the sugar still attracks the bees during the dearth.
I've used it up to 4 times this sping with wonderful sucess on a couple of really infested hives.
Janet


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

Janet, by "clean the sugar out" do you mean the accumulated sugar at the bottom of the hive? That sounds simple enough- I trust you don't mean dissassembling your hives.

George-


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

Um, another question. I was in the store the other day looking at powdered sugar and all brands had some undisclosed percentage of corn starch in it. 

In another message on this site, someone suggested that corn starch might not agree with bees. Is this a known fact? Can you get powdered sugar without corn starch in it?

That's 2 questions...

George-


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

<<In another message on this site, someone suggested that corn starch might not agree with bees. Is this a known fact?>>

Yes, it's a fact, but if it's a small amount, and the bees are able to fly regularly, it's not that bad.

<<Can you get powdered sugar without corn starch in it?>>

You can put table sugar in a blender.


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## 2rubes (Apr 28, 2005)

To clean the sugar out, means to remove it from the hive bottom. If you don't have a sliding board like a stickyboard, you should need to dismantal your hive and scrape the sugar out. Not only will it attrack ants, the sugar hardens and the mites just walk over the top. If you have screen boards and the sugar falls through to a hard floor , you should clean that as well. The debris and sugar could bring it to the top of the screen and the mites could walk up and out. 
On alternative would be to remove your bottom board and put your hive on blocks. Then cut a piece of cardboard to slide underneath to pick up the sugar. Remove and discard after 24 hours. 
Once I lost a hive to varroa mites after having screen boards on for 5 years. Those old screen boards had a very narror space between the sticky board and the screen and I didn't clean it often enough. When I combined weak hives in spring with newspaper, the chewed (by bees) newspaper sifted through the screen, filled up the space and made a floor for the mites to return. The hive collaspe due to mites that were able to reinfest. I haven't lost any more hives to mites although I do have one now that I'm working on to save. That hive, when I split it, I put it under an apple tree that leafed out. So it was mostly in the shade and its been damp and rainy most of our late spring in Northern California. I've read that bees take longer to 'hatch' out of their brood cells and the mites have a chance to double again.
http://www.reineschapleau.wd1.net/articles/AV-BOTTOM BOARD.pdf
The above is an interesting study about not using bottom boards.
This one hive, out of twelve (now divided, almost ready to combine) was the only one and we do have a lot of deformed wings. I gave this hive 4 treatments, with the last treatment showing only a few hundred mites with the last powder sugar treatment, compared to over 1000 (my count was 1400) the first time. When your hive is not very infested, you only see a few hundred with the powdered sugar treatment. 
By the way, I do not take the hives apart to dust with sugar, I didn't know the procedure when I started and just dumped it on the broad boxes and let it sift to the bottom and we reaped a tremendous amount of mites. Its a lot easier and very effective. All of our other hives had 3 treatments and the daily mite drop is very low (3 to 20 in 24 hours)
I have a website up www.countryrubes.com. We have been making our lastest evolution of our screen boards for sale now. However you do it, make your own or buy one, get screens on your hives, they really work

Thanks,
Janet


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

>I enjoy reading your thoughtful posts!

Me too, Dick, you windbag.


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