# ? About formic acid temp



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I noticed that the label on Formic Pro has tighter temp ranges than MAQS. I would go with whatever the label says. And MAQS needs good ventilation in the hive (not sure about Formic Pro) so if your stack is shut down due to cold, that's another factor to consider.

My peaches wouldn't be bothered by 30F this spring, since minus -25F temps in early January killed the fruit buds outright, _again_. <<sigh >> Depending on the size of the trees, floating frost covers may work. They give several degrees of frost protection, even up in the air. PITA to install though, especially if you wait until dark as I always seem to do, hoping to get good news on the late weather report.

Nancy


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

-25 would really wipe me out lol. We only saw 5 this winter, so not too bad. I have a vineyard of about 200 V. vinifera vines and they all have broken bud, most with 2" shoots. I'll probably try to mist half the vineyard and let what will be, be in the other half. I don't actually like peaches but grow them for my family and friends. I've found covering them to be a major pita and not really good results

back to beekeeping... According to the Formic Pro label the low temp isn't such a big deal as long as the daytime highs are above 50 and below 90.


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

So I put two of the F.P. Pads on the hive 12 days ago. We had some cold weather after I put them on and again this weekend. I just checked them. There is very little open brood but they are queenright. I think the bad weather and a bit of a dearth have the bees cannibalizing eggs and brood (which I could use to my advantage with oav). I used my callings scratcher to pull out fork full of capped drone brood and found some dead and some live mites. The pads were depleted and w/o scent. I guess my question is if it was too cold for it to work? I can vaporize in about a week before the current crop of brood is capped or would another round of formic pro be better? I know an alcohol roll would bee better as far as guessing at hive mite load but I've never done one and I was running low on bee working time (got a couple of nuc's that I'm trying to keep from swarming)


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

So I put the formic pro pads on, two of them in the equivalent of a dobble deep, twelve days ago. We've had some cold weather with temps under freezing three times. Today I went through them and found very little open brood. I speared some drone brood with my capping scratcher (this is pretty cool) and found several miles per stab. About half live and half dead. Was it too cold for the formic to work? Should I have used three pads? Maybe hit them with another formic treatment in a week? Use oav in about ten days before the current brood is capped (I think the cold weather and a bit of a dearth have caused a natural brood break)?


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