# Powdered Sugar and Brood?



## john chuey (May 8, 2009)

I have 2 questions regarding pow. sugar treatment. 

1) When you use the pow. sugar treatment does it kill or harm any open larva or capped brood? and 2) I am running 2 deeps with 2 honey supers ,could I remove the honey supers and do the P.S on the brood chamber and then replace the supers. I still have some uncapped honey
but would like to do the treatment.

John


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

I don't think P.S. does much, if anything, to brood.

Yep, you can remove the supers and powder the brood boxes only. You'll miss some, but not a big deal.

You need to do this repeatedly for it to have much effect. Also, I'm assuming you use screened bottom boards.


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## john chuey (May 8, 2009)

Yes I do have S.B.B , so do you think that the pow. sugar will harm any eggs?I have 6 hives 2 are nucs which I installed May 17 and they have built up only 2 deeps and I have another nuc which I started on July 15 which has 4 frames full of capped brood and 2 frames of eggs uncapped . My other 3 hives are 2 packages from 2009 and one swarm from this May. 

John


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## natureboy68 (Feb 28, 2009)

i haven't used powdered sugar yet, but i have heard that supermarket PS contains cornstarch and when you blow it into a hive if it gets into uncapped brood cells it can ferment, and that's not good, so i would say make your own PS: whizz it in the 'ole Cuisinart for a few seconds/minutes, voila! cheaper too...good luck!


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## blueskybeesupply (Dec 11, 2007)

As natureboy68 says, no corn starch. You do want to avoid getting PS in open brood cells. You want to coat adult bees only. That's why it's best to coat between the frames with them hanging. Excessive sugar in cells will harm brood, if anything, by drying them out and smothering them.

As NeilV says, it's fine to treat the broodnest with your honey supers removed, then replace them and you must repeat often. 

PS is not a cure for mites. It holds populations level, for when you don't want to treat (honey supers on). However, you will need to do quite often to have any reduction or use a hard treatment to reduce your counts significantly.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

>does it kill or harm any open larva or capped brood? . . . 
PS in OPEN brood is not a good thing (can kill young larva), but the loss of a bit (if any) of brood is better than the loss of whole colony (from Varroa).
Ps on capped brood does no harm.

>2 deeps with 2 honey supers, could I remove the honey supers and do the P.S on the brood chambers and then replace the supers . . .
That's the way I do it.

Powdered sugar w/ corn starch is OK for "treatments". Only when bees are FED large amounts of sugar syrup containing corn starch is the starch a problem.


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## Fl_Beak (May 9, 2010)

Someone can pipe up if I'm off base here- but as I understand a one shot PS is not effective for mites (not saying that was your plan). But a PS treatment once every 5 days, for 3 weeks does help to disrupt mite populations in the hive, with a SBB.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

From studies done by Randy Oliver. A once a week dusting can keep levels from rising, but not reduce the % infestation.
www.scientificbeekeeping.com


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## 2rubes (Apr 28, 2005)

You really need repeated dustings to bring mite levels down. In the spring of 2005 we had really high counts, DW's and we dusted almost every month in 3 week sessions. By the fall we had much lower counts, still high by that day's standards. I had to learn to tolerate higher counts and keep going. Randy thought we would lose our bees for sure, but we didn't. The next year we dusted 2 times each week for 3 weeks and that really helped. It's very labor intensive, but worth it. At that time Randy was using OA, made out of wood bleach and members were over doing it and hurting their bees. I decided to stick with the PS. And so glad we did, although there were times where we were temped, all it took was Randy saying how hard even thymol was on the bees. With PS, you could use as much as you want and it didn't hurt the bees or open brood.
This year, our counts have been so low, we are just using it to see our mite loads. And like I posted, we just do one dusting to make sure every two months. If we did see more than 30ish mites (easy to see, not digging through the powdered sugar), we would dust again, but we haven't.
And the mites continue to groom themselves, so after a dusting, you are going to see more mites on your sticky than usual. For an accurate 24hour count, wait 3 to 4 days after dusting.
Have a great day,
Janet


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Dave W said:


> >PS in OPEN brood is not a good thing (can kill young larva), but the loss of a bit (if any) of brood is better than the loss of whole colony (from Varroa).


I agree with the last half of the statement. If you've used formic acid, you probably saw a bit of lost brood along with the mites, but the colony benefited from the sacrifice.

I don't know that young larvae is killed or harmed by the dusting. I've read that here, but I haven't seen any evidence of it in my hives, nor any scientific reports of it. I don't know if this idea is based on anyone's direct observations or, as I suspect, someone's speculation that has gained the status of fact by the mere retelling.

Dennis Murell writes about having sprayed powdered sugar directly into uncapped cells and reports the brood survived.

Wayne


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## john chuey (May 8, 2009)

I just want to thank everyone for all the responses on the sugar dusting.

Thank You

John


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