# OAV and hundreds of crawling/dying bees



## DPBsbees (Apr 14, 2011)

I've been using OAV for a few years as a cleanup treatment in late fall, early winter. I have never had that happen. I've had hives too far gone for OAV to save, but never an instance where I felt that OAV was the cause. Several of my friends use it as well and I've never heard them describe something like this.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

There is something more going on here than an OAV treatment killing your bees. It doesn't happen if you perform the treatments correctly (which you say you have) I'd call the Beltsville bee lab for instructions on how to send a sample to them.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Mr.Beeman said:


> Ok.... some of you may have read my previous post in regards to dying bees by the hundreds after an OAV treatment late fall. The ground stunk with dead bee carcasses.
> I just got in from checking the hives since it got to 52 here today. Most of my hives are void of thousands of bees. Just a few hundred along with the queens remain.
> Mind you before the OAV treatments these hives were busting at the seams with bees.
> Anyone else have these same issues after treatment?
> Before you ask, the treatments were properly performed with the proper materials/equipment.


Am no pro here, but what you describe with the the queen remaining and just a few bees sounds like CCD; I am sure it is not a coincidence because of the obvious dying bees you had observed earlier but it's just an opinion. I would personally email Randy Oliver, or better yet, present your case on Bee-l, you'll get some answers.


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## radial (Aug 1, 2016)

As a first year beekeeper, my experience is about an inch deep. But with that caveat, my bees seemed fine with the three OAV treatments I did in late summer and the additional one I did earlier this month. The only bees that died were the unfortunate 3 or 4 that got fried because they were too close to the vaporizer head when it heated up.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

This is so atypical of OAV that it it seems unlikely to be caused by it. 

OAV has been used for a long time, in many parts of the world, with all kinds of vaporizing equipment, and all forms of OA (the "official" kind, pure stuff ordered off the internet and the hardware store wood bleach type) and in probably tens of thousands colonies (counting all the ones in Europe) and with bees in all states of health and by beekeepers with a wide variety of attention to performing the job according to standards (i.e. some are extremely meticulous measurers and some just eyeball the dose.). And I have never read of such a response even in a modest way.

Something else happened to your bees. Hopefully you sent a sample of the freshly killed bees to Beltsville when it first happened. If not, then collect some of the more-recently dead ones and send them. You will want to make sure that your comb is still safe for other bees.

Hope you can get to the bottom of this, but I think it extremely unlikely you killed your colonies using OAV.

Enj.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

I hope to be able to get some answers as well. It just seems so coincidental that the dead bees were so numerous just after (one day) the initial dose of OA. This is a first for me as well. Thanks for your time so far.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Well I'm not going to trust that you did the OAV properly. Is that the only treatment you are useing? I think there should be many different ways we should use for treatments depending on the condition of the hive at the time of treatment. Maybe a timeline on your treatments can give more of a clue as to what is happening.


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## WillH (Jun 25, 2010)

If they made it to winter, they already beat Varroa. Why bother them with unnecessary treatments?


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

WillH said:


> If they made it to winter, they already beat Varroa. Why bother them with unnecessary treatments?


Just because they made to winter, does not mean they'll make it through winter! Besides they'll come into spring basically mite free. Recent university of Sussex studies and all studies I've read states that the broodless periods are the very best times to treat.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

WillH said:


> If they made it to winter, they already beat Varroa. Why bother them with unnecessary treatments?


Bee can make it to winter fine if they have varroa they just can't live to spring with varroa :lookout:


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

They can if you simply removed the infected cap brood frames to a mite bee bomb nuc hive. No other 
treatment is allowed.
Seriously, the queen and bees never recovered from the oav treatment. Right now is too late to find an answer.
If presented earlier I would give them a frame or 2 of bees and cap broods from another hive. It is too late now to
find the caused of it. Maybe oav or the mites still in there. A timeline with dates of the treatments would help.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Your oav was way to late. Crawlers are a good sign the undertaker needs to be called now. Bet a virus test would show a load so high the scale would break.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

When and where did you get your OA?
Have you used this batch before?

There is another thread something about Amazon OA killed my bees. you might want to look at if you just purchased this batch.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...Acid-Killed-my-Hives!&highlight=amazon+killed

There is only one approve brand of OA to be used in a hive, if you buy something else there is a chance it has something other that OA in it.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

OAV doesn't save a hive that has a killing virus load.
Israeli virus and DWV show up as crawlers -- and are varroa transmitted virus.
Nosema will cause crawling bees that spill from the hive in waves in the late fall and winter.
Tracheal mites did this too, though that scourge has receeded recently.

I killed a hive with an OAV overdose (years ago) and the die off was 24 hour, with dead bees within the hive, not crawlers weeks later.


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## kingd (Oct 31, 2013)

hi beeman, I have been hearing of losses like you described in our area. Some treated, others not.
The ones that were treated, it was all around October/early november.
Strange because most of them had food and were booming. So far I have lost a tiny nuc.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

When did you treat exactly? If it was past August 1st, it was probably too late. Seeing dead bees soon after treating is suspect though as well. I see this all the time with late treatments or hives I don't treat.... they have massive population loss when the first cold spell hits and you're left with 1-3 frames of bees and a queen. Hives could've been 3 box deeps busting at the seems prior, but if you're virus load isn't under control when the winter bees are being made in early fall/late summer, or if the fall flow isn't very nutritious when these bees are being made this is what typically happens.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

JRG13 describes the problem very well. 
What he describes is what I see here as well. I figure bee brooding naturally slows down by middle June, and by end of July, I see reducing populations with very high Varroa loads in the hives. If I don't take care of the might problems early enough, or if I don't continue to take care of them all the way into the end of November, then I have hives crashing the first cold spell that hits, even if the hives are well fed and with good stores.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

This thread is another one of those "I treated my bees but they died anyway" threads, which in most cases means the bees were treated too late, busting with bees or not I've seen those hives collapse real quick.

Having said that, we don't really know what happened to your bees Mr. Beeman, possibly something totally unrelated such as poisoning, with so many folks using OAV now, statistically someone somewhere has to lose his bees from something else just after he treated.



WillH said:


> If they made it to winter, they already beat Varroa. Why bother them with unnecessary treatments?


If they made it to spring they beat varroa, for the time being.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

WillH said:


> If they made it to winter, they already beat Varroa. Why bother them with unnecessary treatments?


If you think that I've got a bridge to sell you. Patently untrue.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Also, you need to inspect the hive prior and post treatment and see what's going on. If you see spotty brood, bees with DWV, dead larva etc... you are in full blown PMS and the hive will crash. It may be salvaged if the mite issue is resolved but doing a few rounds of OAV then not checking again if the hive still has PMS really does no good. You need to inspect afterwards and see how the brood and bees look. If you don't have pictures though, we can't really say much, because what looks good to you might actually not be the case.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

all kinds of possibilities, unless you get them tested, next year you may be wondering again. Note here is the newest attach on our poor bees, In Wisconsin I think one of the posts said.



> A New Bacterium-bee Interaction
> 
> We isolated a free-living Gram negative bacillus from hemolymph of worker honey bees (Apis mellifera) found separated from winter clusters. In some hives, greater than 90% of the dying bees detached from the winter cluster were found to contain this bacterium in their hemolymph. Throughout the year, the same organism was rarely found in bees engaged in normal hive activities, but was detected in about half of Varroa destructor mites obtained from colonies that housed the septic bees.


http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1612&L=bee-l&F=&S=&P=104215



> Burritt NL, Foss NJ, Neeno-Eckwall EC, Church JO, Hilger AM, Hildebrand JA, et al. (2016) Sepsis and Hemocyte Loss in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) Infected with Serratia marcescens Strain Sicaria. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0167752. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0167752


Randy Olivers response



> All I can say is Wow! It's unfortunate that the authors did not wait until
> they had successfully fulfilled Koch's Postulates, but this could be a big
> thing. I'm heading out to look at the haemolymph of dead bees in my hives.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

I treated the middle of oct and did so once a week for three weeks. Basically when they started to become broodless. Timing sould have been correct for my area. My guess is that the OAV got into uncapped honey crown in the brood chambers and did the hive in this way. Is this even a possibility? It was literally just after the initial treatment that the bees started to die off.
From all my research, OAV is not supposed to harm bees but the honey supers need to be sealed off from the brood chambers during treatment for 15 minutes. I never could find a decent answer as to why though.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

JRG13 said:


> Also, you need to inspect the hive prior and post treatment and see what's going on. If you see spotty brood, bees with DWV, dead larva etc... you are in full blown PMS and the hive will crash. It may be salvaged if the mite issue is resolved but doing a few rounds of OAV then not checking again if the hive still has PMS really does no good. You need to inspect afterwards and see how the brood and bees look. If you don't have pictures though, we can't really say much, because what looks good to you might actually not be the case.


The beehives were busting at the seams and had tons of brood/stores the beginning of Oct. For all intensive purposes, they were very healthy.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Honey-4-All said:


> Your oav was way to late. Crawlers are a good sign the undertaker needs to be called now. Bet a virus test would show a load so high the scale would break.


The crawlers appeared the day after my first treatment. Up to that point, they were very healthy.


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## Little boy blue (Dec 13, 2016)

JRG13 said:


> Also, you need to inspect the hive prior and post treatment and see what's going on. If you see spotty brood, bees with DWV, dead larva etc... you are in full blown PMS and the hive will crash. It may be salvaged if the mite issue is resolved but doing a few rounds of OAV then not checking again if the hive still has PMS really does no good. You need to inspect afterwards and see how the brood and bees look. If you don't have pictures though, we can't really say much, because what looks good to you might actually not be the case.


Have your treatment material tested as well, by a good lab.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Mr Beeman, where did you get your oxalic? October sounds late to treat though, but the mites could've not been a factor if the hives were still looking healthy and had solid brood patterns still. There is another thread where someone used OAV from amazon or something, maybe ebay and he thinks all his hives were affected by it. Honestly, as I've worked in a lab setting, I would never buy it from a site like that, I only use lab supply companies as they guarantee the purity, might cost more, but peace of mind is better than buying stuff off ebay IMHO. Also, that being said, I haven't had much luck the few times I used OAV, so perhaps the mites finally caught up to the bees but w/o sampling or pictures of the brood pattern just before they died it's hard to say.


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## WillH (Jun 25, 2010)

Andrew Dewey said:


> If you think that I've got a bridge to sell you. Patently untrue.


Don't need to buy a bridge from you, I got plenty here, How much of a problem do you think Varroa will be in a Michigan winter? May be a virus? But gassing them with acid will not do anything to the virus, but killed them.


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## cata_rebel (Jun 26, 2013)

Mr beeman 
I leave S west have same situation in the fall 
If you send the bees to lab please let me know what they find out


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## Forgiven (Nov 17, 2016)

Mr.Beeman said:


> I treated the middle of oct and did so once a week for three weeks. Basically when they started to become broodless. Timing sould have been correct for my area. My guess is that the OAV got into uncapped honey crown in the brood chambers and did the hive in this way. Is this even a possibility? It was literally just after the initial treatment that the bees started to die off.
> From all my research, OAV is not supposed to harm bees but the honey supers need to be sealed off from the brood chambers during treatment for 15 minutes. I never could find a decent answer as to why though.


Why three times? If they were broodless, shouldn't one be enough?

I do vaguely remember there being studies saying winter bees can't take more than one dose of OA, was probably for drops, not vapor, but I'm not sure why there would be a difference.
OA is not 'totally harmless' to bees, that's an illusion, it's more harmful to mites and bees do survive it, in moderation.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Ok.... this scenario got me to thinking. Most claim OAV is harmless to bees while others believe it's marginally harmless. 
Here's my questions.... Does smoking the bees just prior to treating them with OAV create an issue? Will the OAV treatment become harmful to the bees if they ingest the OA during or just after the treatment process?


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## mcon672 (Mar 5, 2015)

WillH said:


> Don't need to buy a bridge from you, I got plenty here, How much of a problem do you think Varroa will be in a Michigan winter? May be a virus? But gassing them with acid will not do anything to the virus, but killed them.


The winter treatment usually end of December or beginning of January for me is the BEST time to use OAV. The hive is broodles or nearly broodless so the mites are phoretic (on the bees where OAV will have an effect on them not under brood caps). This treatment will kill most of your mites. I have also treated in summer and fall. I treated this December and when I checked the sticky boards yesterday I had some hives with only one or two mites on the board since December. The winter solstice is a great time to do a treatment . It is very helpful to both bee and beek for your hives to start spring with very low mite levels. I was treatment free for my first three years with limited success until year 3 when things went south for a few hives now I only use oav and have had great success with it. Honestly I use oav instead of sugar or alcohol to do mite counts. Then if a follow up treatment is required and brood is preaent I already have one of the 5 sets of treatments I do complete. IHMO anytime that you have time to do an OAV is a good time. As a matter of fact that is my plan for today since we are having crazy nice weather for February. Going to treat both of my yards, my cousins and my buddy's and see what falls. Really just itching to try new vaporizer.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Mr.Beeman said:


> Ok.... this scenario got me to thinking. Most claim OAV is harmless to bees while others believe it's marginally harmless.
> Here's my questions.... Does smoking the bees just prior to treating them with OAV create an issue? Will the OAV treatment become harmful to the bees if they ingest the OA during or just after the treatment process?


The way you treat with OAV makes a big difference. If you only treat when the hive is brood less I found it dos t work. The bees are allready infected with the viruses that shorten there life and they won't live to spring. You might get away with it if you live in a warm climate but if you have a long winter like me your bees will be dead before spring. You should have treated in August then you will have young bees raised without mites for your winter bees.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Good point Dan the Bee Guy it's important people understand that.

Also, regarding the smoking question, what I do anyway is give the bees a few puffs of smoke just to get them running around a bit so the OAV will penetrate everywhere. Over smoking could be bad though, if bees are driven into a thick mass in a corner that the OAV won't penetrate.


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