# powdered sugar



## ffblaschke (Mar 23, 2008)

This past sunday, went to a meeting and dusting was one of the presentations. Screened bottom board, dust the top of frames with 1 cup of powdered sugar per brood box (deep) then brush to evenly spread the sugar. note: sugar has to be sifted so there is no clumps. repeat for top brood box. Put tray or cardboard under screen sprayed with pam or coated with cooking oil, 
Do this this treatment 3 weeks in a row, then 1 time a month after that. The stats say this is up to 83% effective. It can also be done while honey supers are on. 
Use either kitchen sifter or you can make a screen the size of inner cover, set on top of the box to be dusted, put sugar on, and brush to spread, just another way. Just removing the clump. Hope this helps. jim


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> everything i've read says to just dust the powdered sugar on top of the 
> frames and brush it down in between them. 

That is an *untested approach*, claimed to work, but not verified by any
sort of controlled study. It is promoted by a number of people who
do not give credit to the person from Finland who developed the technique,
and used the "dusting each face" approach. That approach is known to
work.

The original article was in ABJ in 2000. 
I wrote a step-by-step for Bee-L back when BeeSource was just Barry and
me and a half-dozen others, most who have wandered off since then.
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0105D&L=BEE-L&P=R1576&D=0&H=0&I=-3&O=T&T=0

> is that more effective? seems like it would be, 

You are correct, of course - dusting ALL the bees is much better than
dumping some sugar on the top bars and getting some on the bees who 
are high on the frames.

> but seems to use a lot more sugar

The guy in the video isn't doing it quite right either. 
Read my write-up.

It can use much much less sugar when one realizes that the goal here is
to generate lots of particles 5 to 15 microns in diameter. These particles
clog the tarsal pads (little suction cup feet) of the mites, which means 
that they can't hang on to anything, and fall down through your screened
bottom, and down to the ground. To get these fine particles, you want to
"poof" the sugar, and generate a fine cloud, which should look like smoke.

The people who promote "dumping and brushing" say that the sugar
promotes grooming behavior, and mites get dislodged. Perhaps this 
behavior can be observed in some cases, but this is not what was 
meant by "sugar dusting", and this is not going to be anywhere near 
as effective as "poofing" each side of each frame. It bees can
"groom mites off", they do. Several people have video-taped this
behavior. They don't need to have sugar dumped on them to prompt 
the behavior. 

The contamination issues when one dumps so much sugar in a hive
might raise eyebrows among those that want honey not contaminated
by sugar. Poofing uses very little sugar, and can be done when supers
are on without creating any detectable problem for the honey crop.

Yes, the process is labor intensive, but for the smaller beekeeper,
poofing both sides of each frame of the brood chamber is not a
big deal, even if they do it every other week to knock back the
mite population. It certainly does not scale up well, so I only
used the approach on colonies that had unusually hive varroa
drop increases (the delta between readings was large, and the
curve of the drop counts had "gone exponential") during the major
blooms.

It's none of my business when people to do crazy things with their 
own hives, but when they try to impose their nuttiness on innocents, 
I get angry. The story of "sugar dusting" is a classic example of
how a good idea and an elegant solution to a common problem
was hijacked by beekeepers who wanted "easy answers" rather than
"elegant solutions". 

And no one knows how well the "easy answer" works. That does not
matter to the clowns who "teach" this "treatment". They just want 
to play at being "experts".

Its just pure nonsense, and people buy into this kind of stuff all the time.


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## jdpro5010 (Mar 22, 2007)

I went to a talk by Randy Oliver and he said he had done a small experiment to determine if dusting each frame was necessary. He put 1 cup per brood box thru door screen brushed evenly with bee brush and compared that to individually dusting each frame. No statistical difference was noted as far as mite counts. He also tried adding 1 cup to each individual brood box as compared to just putting 2 cups on top of the 2 brood boxes, also noticed no statistical difference. In both of these cases he was quick to point out that these were not perfect experiments but were good enough that it did dictate to him methods he would use.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

Jim Fischer said:


> > everything i've read says to just dust the powdered sugar on top of the
> > frames and brush it down in between them.
> 
> That is an *untested approach*, claimed to work, but not verified by any
> ...


After reading the article (thank you for sharing) I feel pretty silly for doing what the gentleman did in the video.  (unfortunately I found the video before the forums). I did this on one of my 3 hives…  


I will have to try the suggestion from the article using the “baby powder container”. 

My goal is to treat the hives as organically as possible. I am not a fan of chemicals, as I am sure many may not be. 

I will continue to look through the forums for organic treatments for pests. All suggestions or links welcome…

Thank you in advance to all those that are willing to help noobies such as myself.


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## Swobee (May 18, 2007)

I got a small garden duster for about $10 and use that. It has a 3" long bent tube that fits well between the frames. I still like to remove them and thoroughly dust the frame faces just to make sure. Takes longer, but you know they're well dusted. I used a sifter the first couple of times and decided there had to be a better way. If you only have a hive or two, a sifter to dust each frame is OK.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

Is this the type of duster you use?

http://www.safesolutionsinc.com/Pest_Pistol.jpg

Thank you!!


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## Swobee (May 18, 2007)

*Duster*



Veracity said:


> Is this the type of duster you use?
> 
> http://www.safesolutionsinc.com/Pest_Pistol.jpg
> 
> Thank you!!


No, but I have used those style in the past for other things. I like the style you showed. The one I have has a sliding pump and a container that holds about a pint. I got it at an Orscheln (regional farm product store). Found the receipt, it was actually $12+ change. It might be a Gilmore, but it's not close by to look at. 

What I like about the duster you show is- if you get pretty active with mine, the handle pulls off the plunger. You just can't stroke it too hard and fast. Your photo shows one that takes only one hand (mine takes two), but would maybe wear the hand out after a short time. A fine dusting is all that is necessary, not globs and piles of dust. You get better application control with the dusters than dumping and brushing.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> I went to a talk by Randy Oliver and he said he had done a small experiment to determine if dusting each frame was necessary. He put 1 cup per brood box thru door screen brushed evenly with bee brush and compared that to individually dusting each frame. No statistical difference was noted as far as mite counts. He also tried adding 1 cup to each individual brood box as compared to just putting 2 cups on top of the 2 brood boxes, also noticed no statistical difference. In both of these cases he was quick to point out that these were not perfect experiments but were good enough that it did dictate to him methods he would use.


Yeah, Randy had not read the literature, and did not "poof" the fine smoke-like cloud required to generate the 5 to 15 micron particles to 
get actual control over the mites with sugar.

So, *both* methods he used were ill-advised and used poor technique.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

I think I may know what you are speaking of (I am in Information technology and my gardening equipment knwledge is not so good) , if you find a link via google images please post here. I appreciate your help. thank you in advance either way.


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## Swobee (May 18, 2007)

*Duster*

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...prev=/images?q=garden+duster+photo&um=1&hl=en

The one I have is second row, first on left. I think about any duster will work, I like the little duster you shared a photo of. I chose this one for these reasons: the little tube fits between frames, flat tip on the end of the tube spreads dust nicely, price, not bulky in size. If you get to really pumping away, you accidentally pull the pump handle rod from the plunger. It's very easy to reinsert, but sure stops the rythm. For large scale operators, they make a hand crank style duster that really applies the dust fast. Go to a garden store and play around with their dusters.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

I was off a bit from what I was thinking... Thank you for the link, I will play around... maybe I will bring some powdered sugar with me to home depot ...lol


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Shucks, I just used a plastic baby powder bottle. 

I never found a commercial device that dusted as well.


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## EngineeringBeek (Mar 4, 2008)

I've created my own duster but I have yet to test it so I'm hesitant about posting it until I know how well it will work. I'll try to keep you updated. I hope that I can test it soon, I just have a little more work to do on it to get the power source connected properly. Its powered by a small tank of compressed air or CO2 (just don't over-use the CO2). The thought is that you can simply walk up to a hive, open it up and squeeze the valve and you instantly have a stream of air carrying powdered sugar into every nook and cranny of the hive. I'm sure it will require careful regulation to deliver the sugar properly without blowing the bees away, but it shouldn't be too difficult once everything is adjusted.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

You must have a really strong believe in this treatment, otherwise it’s not working and you waste sugar and time.
We have a member who treated last year with powder sugar once a week for two month (8x).

Here the result from one of his hives; mite drops after each dusting with sugar.

24, 78, 66, 107, 33, 12, 118, 54

Here the result of one treatment with Perizin (liquid chumafos) a week after the last sugar dusts.

Fist week after Perizin the mite drop was 789 the second week 2481. 

IMO we should not recommend sugar to beginner beekeepers. They spend much money to start a new hobby and and might give up after the first or second season.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

Axtmann said:


> You must have a really strong believe in this treatment, otherwise it’s not working and you waste sugar and time.
> We have a member who treated last year with powder sugar once a week for two month (8x).
> 
> Here the result from one of his hives; mite drops after each dusting with sugar.
> ...



How was this sugar applied by this member?

Thank you for the information you provided...


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## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

Looks like the comophous does the best job. I have started to experiment with powdered sugar. To apply, I just get down into the brood chamber sprinkle about a cup of powdered sugar on the tops of the frames and brush vigirously with a bee brush. I know you can utilize this treatment during the honey flow, but it has become impraticle with my hive that has 7 supers of honey on top of the brood boxes. I think I will do some early extraction this weekend.


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## simplyhoney (Sep 14, 2004)

*Air Sprayer*

When the talk of powdered sugar for varroa control surfaced a few years ago I was interested. I run about 500 colonies, small for a "commercial guy" big for a hobbist. I realized at once, as Jim F stated that this method doesn't scale up. Dusting each side of each frame would mean dusting 9000 frames times each side (18,000) puffs of dust. Even if I were superman the job couldn't be done efficiently. So like many of us beeks I turned to my inventive side. I found a siphon style air sprayer at Harbor Frieght for about 25.00. I fitted it with a little curved tube at the nozzel. When my bees came back from California that year I preformed ether rolls and found about 20 colonies that were loaded with mites, although they showed little to no signs of PMS. I hooked the air hose up to my air brake tank on my 2ton and the other end to the paint gun. I filled the liter-sized hopper with sifted powder sugar. My plan was to put the nozzel tube into the entrance of the hive and spray dust throughout the whole colony. It seemed to really fill the hive with dust b/c there were clouds comming out of every crack. By the third colony the bees were so irritated that I felt it couldn't be good, but I continued. When I was finished I went back and put posterboard with cooking spray under them and left them over night. There was some mite drop but the numbers weren't impressive considering the mite load. I still think there is some validity to this approach but if you try it use less pressure more volume in the air current.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

wondering if everybody that posted here had read the link from ABJ that Jim Fischer posted...


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## EngineeringBeek (Mar 4, 2008)

My duster is done. With slight modifications I think I can get it to flow more sugar and less air. I just need to direct the air into the sugar rather that rely on the turbulence of the air to stir the sugar up. Here is a video. I was using CO2 in this run which my duster is not designed for so I was being overly cautious with the pressure and I think that cut back my sugar flow a little bit. In this video I used about 1/4 cup sugar. With a little refinement this could make dusting a really quick job.
The video is quicktime and depending on your settings it may not play. If it doesn't it should if you save the target and then play it with quicktime.

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~colchimd/pictures/duster.MOV


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

EngineeringBeek said:


> My duster is done. With slight modifications I think I can get it to flow more sugar and less air. I just need to direct the air into the sugar rather that rely on the turbulence of the air to stir the sugar up. Here is a video. I was using CO2 in this run which my duster is not designed for so I was being overly cautious with the pressure and I think that cut back my sugar flow a little bit. In this video I used about 1/4 cup sugar. With a little refinement this could make dusting a really quick job.
> The video is quicktime and depending on your settings it may not play. If it doesn't it should if you save the target and then play it with quicktime.
> 
> http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~colchimd/pictures/duster.MOV


Plays with nero as well... no audio with nero... from what I am reading you may not need as much sugar? 

nicely done tho'


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## EngineeringBeek (Mar 4, 2008)

Veracity said:


> Plays with nero as well... no audio with nero... from what I am reading you may not need as much sugar?
> 
> nicely done tho'


There may not be much audio to hear. Its pretty quiet and the video was also shot with a digital photo camera, not a video camera so the audio pickup is terrible. The audio doesn't really matter, unless you want to here a slight 'hiss' of air flowing; but even then its not much of a hiss.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

ya' I was not sure if you were speaking


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## GaSteve (Apr 28, 2004)

> To apply, I just get down into the brood chamber sprinkle about a cup of powdered sugar on the tops of the frames and brush vigirously with a bee brush.




That's how I do it and it works well. I've found that if you sift the sugar once or twice before sifting it over the hive you get much better coverage with much less sugar.

When I was in college a common practical joke was to put a small amount of baby powder (maybe 1/4 cup) in a large brown envelope. Then we (errr.... I mean they) would slide the opening of the envelope just under the dorm room door. Then take a heavy text book and slam it down on the envelope. That little bit of powder would coat everything and I mean everything in the entire room.

There should be a way to adapt that principle to sugaring a hive. Maybe nothing more than two flat surfaces and a couple clipboard springs would coat the entire interior of the hive. l'll put that on my list of experiments.


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## Veracity (May 3, 2008)

GaSteve said:


> When I was in college a common practical joke was to put a small amount of baby powder (maybe 1/4 cup) in a large brown envelope. Then we (errr.... I mean they) would slide the opening of the envelope just under the dorm room door. Then take a heavy text book and slam it down on the envelope. That little bit of powder would coat everything and I mean everything in the entire room.




lmao...


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## simplyhoney (Sep 14, 2004)

*Sweet duster*

Hey engineerbeek,

Nice, A couple of quick suggestions though. You really should use compressed air as a honey bee is naturally alarmed by CO2. Also what if you angled your air chuck at a 45 towards the bottom of the container. I really need an "organic" treatmen right now. I might try my hand at building something similar.

SH


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