# MAQS Disaster?



## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

I had a really strong hive that appeared to be doing well and from which I was able to harvest a good amount of honey earlier this summer. I did a sugar roll mite count and came up with 13 mites/ 300 bees (1/2 cup) so I decided to treat with MiteAway Quick Strips. I had to wait until the beginning of last week as the weather had been unusually hot and was over 90 degrees the week before. The strips were placed exactly as instructed between the 2 bottom deep brood boxes and there were still 3 supers above. I placed a queen excluder above the first super which was still being used a brood box by the queen.
All seemed well all week despite some of the expected bearding, and there were bees flying everywhere for the little forage around here now. This is the only hive in this location.
When I went to remove the strips today the hive was dead. Thousands of dead bees on the queen excluder and elswhere ( see pics), and lots of wasps, SHB's , and larvae that I am assuming are from wax moths- but still some live honeybees. I plan on destroying the frames due to the large amount of SHB that were not such a problem before and also with all the wax moth larvae.
Any advice on why this happened? Should I have only used one MiteAway strip and seen how they tolerate it?
This is a terrible loss of what seemed to be an otherwise decent hive.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I have had quite a few hives die this Summer. I didn't do a Spring mite Treatment, so after seeing some high mite counts in June I treated with MAQS as soon as I could get them and when I took the honey off. Then I treated a couple weeks later. And still, every time I go back to the hives I find another one dead or with so little brood it might as well be dead.

I had a visit from the Bee Informed Project Tech Team last Saturday. Looking over their shoulders while they worked they showed me the evidence of deformed wing virus and some other maladies in the hives.

If your hive is anything like mine, I would suspect that you didn't have much brood in the hive when you applied the MAQS and the colony was already on death's door when you treated. Seeing the remnants of chewed up comb my first thought is that your hive was robbed of its honey and that the dead bees are the ones that were left to defend their stores. 

Sorry for your loss.


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## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> I have had quite a few hives die this Summer. I didn't do a Spring mite Treatment, so after seeing some high mite counts in June I treated with MAQS as soon as I could get them and when I took the honey off. Then I treated a couple weeks later. And still, every time I go back to the hives I find another one dead or with so little brood it might as well be dead.
> 
> I had a visit from the Bee Informed Project Tech Team last Saturday. Looking over their shoulders while they worked they showed me the evidence of deformed wing virus and some other maladies in the hives.
> 
> ...


I initially had similar concerns but this was actually a strong hive with quite a bit of brood and seemingly good stores. It just seemed that the MiteAway somehow tipped them over later in the week of treatment. I think the robbing occurred subsequently and was still ongoing when I went in today and tore it all down. I do appreciate hearing that I am not the only one experiencing unusual losses this summer- more than I've seen in the past.


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## lprikockis (May 19, 2015)

thegoldenroad said:


> I initially had similar concerns but this was actually a strong hive with quite a bit of brood and seemingly good stores. It just seemed that the MiteAway somehow tipped them over later in the week of treatment. I think the robbing occurred subsequently and was still ongoing when I went in today and tore it all down. I do appreciate hearing that I am not the only one experiencing unusual losses this summer- more than I've seen in the past.


Wow... it was stories like this that made me very nervous about using MAQS... but I went ahead and treated two weeks ago (after a 9/300 mite sample in a sugar roll).

I had two strong hives in 8 frame mediums (4 boxes - as that's what I plan to go into winter with) and a 2 story 5-frame medium nuc. I used 1 strip for the nuc and even then wasn't sure if it was going to be ok.

There was the expected bearding-- I think the ENTIRE nuc moved to the outside of the hive for the first 3 days and a disturbing number of dead bees out front. Also, because i had removed the entrance reducers for ventillation, I had a few incidents of robbing during the first couple of days, though both big hives fended them off eventually. 

I finally had a chance to get back in and take out the remnants of the MAQS and survey yesterday... and all 3 hives were chock full of bees. I didn't see any of the 3 queens, but saw some very young brood so I'm pretty sure they're fine. Best of all, while the tops of the MAQS strips had so many dead mites on them they looked like sesame rolls, a subsequent sugar roll on the hive with the high mite count turned up ZERO mites.

I'm sorry others have had summer losses and I'm certainly not going to get complacent about mites or anything else (this is year 2 for me -- my one hive succumbed to DWV and whatever else the mites brought last winter), but I did want to offer a positive MAQS experience as a counterpoint. It's tough though when you feel like doing nothing will almost certainly result in a dead hive (not looking to stir up any flames -- i realize some people have great success without treatment- doesn't seem to be the case in my area though) and then if you DO treat, you still have to wonder if the treatment was worse than the disease...


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

another possibility is the bees couldn't get through the excluder fast enough to get away from the formic, also check the expiration date on the pail, if they are past the expiration date, the film on the pads degrades, and what you actually are doing is a flash treatment. sorry about the dead hive.


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## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

wildbranch2007 said:


> another possibility is the bees couldn't get through the excluder fast enough to get away from the formic, also check the expiration date on the pail, if they are past the expiration date, the film on the pads degrades, and what you actually are doing is a flash treatment. sorry about the dead hive.


I suppose you may be right. The expiration date was a year ago but the packages seemed fine and the film on the pads didn't appear to be bad, and also the reaction of the bees didn't seem to be as strong as I've seen it in the past.


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## Pinchecharlie (May 14, 2014)

Iam no real veteran but I've used a lot of maqs and have never even lost a queen. I watched a cheesy video that maqs put out and they really stress temps and lots of ventilation. They even wanted you to overhang the boxes by a inch or so during treatment .they also recommend adding a box for them to move up to if there isn't one. Sucks bad but I'd guess they got stranded on the excluder then robbed out, I've seen hives act like nothing was different when they had maqs on so I dunno. Sorry that happened because so far I've had really good luck with it.


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## aran (May 20, 2015)

i have a box of MAQS i bought but have been too nervous to use after reading posts like this. I have stuck with my OAV 3 treatements 5 days apart twice a year and one final treatment in December.
I do always wonder though if i shouldnt just try these MAQS...perhaps ill use it on a few hives in spring


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## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

aran said:


> i have a box of MAQS i bought but have been too nervous to use after reading posts like this. I have stuck with my OAV 3 treatements 5 days apart twice a year and one final treatment in December.
> I do always wonder though if i shouldnt just try these MAQS...perhaps ill use it on a few hives in spring


I actually was planning an OAV treatment in December but got nervous with the high mite count. I thought they might be too weakened if I waited that long and then if they didn't make it through the winter with just that late OAV treatment alone, I would have been second guessing myself for not treating sooner while they were still making brood. I'm thinking that in the future if I use MAQS again, might eliminate the queen excluder altogether and perhaps just use a half dose especially if they will be treated with OAV later on. I know that's not very scientific but I don't want to see another hive lost like this one was.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

I've never used MAQs, but looking at the photos, it almost looks like a lot of bees died while trying to squeeze through the queen excluder, as if they died while they were fleeing the MAQs fumes.

Maybe wildbranch2007's comments about the expired MAQs releasing the formic acid too quickly is the answer.


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## njharnde (Jul 8, 2015)

That **** is toxic! If you have not got enough ventilation AKA still have your reducer on. It will kill them. I lost two hives. The rest is just a result of a dead hive and friends moving in and population not being checked.


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## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

njharnde said:


> That **** is toxic! If you have not got enough ventilation AKA still have your reducer on. It will kill them. I lost two hives. The rest is just a result of a dead hive and friends moving in and population not being checked.


Agreed. I had no reducer and the 2 deeps and first super have holes drilled for added ventilation. I think the dose was too heavy and I'm not convinced the queen excluder is a good idea.


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## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

njharnde said:


> That **** is toxic! If you have not got enough ventilation AKA still have your reducer on. It will kill them. I lost two hives. The rest is just a result of a dead hive and friends moving in and population not being checked.


Agreed. I had no reducer and the 2 deeps and first super have holes drilled for added ventilation. I think the dose was too heavy and I'm not convinced the queen excluder is a good idea.


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## aran (May 20, 2015)

I'm no expert but have had no issues with oav so far...I have been treating twice a year ( early spring and again this current time of year and then the one single dose in December...so far so good.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

wildbranch2007 said:


> another possibility is the bees couldn't get through the excluder fast enough to get away from the formic, also check the expiration date on the pail, if they are past the expiration date, the film on the pads degrades, and what you actually are doing is a flash treatment. sorry about the dead hive.


I agree about the QE being problematic. I seem to recall a similar incident a year or two back. Perhaps Radar can find the thread. What was the temps during treatment?


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## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

I was debating about MAQS and VOA, this makes me glad I have feral mutts and my set it and forget it strategy for the last 2yrs.
I manage my hives make sure that queen is doing her job and they have room as they expand.
Harvested 250lbs of honey this year

in AZ i had 21 hives and I'm going into this winter with 7. 
3 of them requeened and the rest survivors queens.
out of 21, 13 were almond bees, 7 survivor stock, 1 hive free bees from a family who never treated he claimed, these are from the Phoenix, az area


I had 4 colonies in Oregon that lived through last winter and I'm going in this winter with 10, all survivor stock.

3rd winter this year, lets see what happens.

Next spring will tell. If I need to I will treat, but I am trying to go chemical free.
It's going to rough I know. 
I want to build to a sidelineer with 60hives...who knows. 
It's a bumpy road.


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## thegoldenroad (Jul 16, 2013)

AstroBee said:


> I agree about the QE being problematic. I seem to recall a similar incident a year or two back. Perhaps Radar can find the thread. What was the temps during treatment?


The temp never went above 81 degrees during the day and was in the 70's on the day of initial placement of the strips.


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## IAmTheWaterbug (Jun 4, 2014)

Yikes! I have a pail of MAQS sitting in my freezer, awaiting a suitable day for application. We're seeing a bit of an Indian Summer here in Los Angeles (upper 80s this weekend through Tuesday, then low 80s) so I'm going to wait an extra week.

In lieu of a setback in my upper deep, what if I just keep my feeder tops on, with no jar? 










Or is a setback better because it actually allows the bees to flee?


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