# Treating mating nucs



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

On bigger hives you can vaporize from the top and there are enough bees to fan the smoke around. I dont know whether you would find limitations with only a few frames of bees in compartments. I haven't found any mortality with five frame nucs but I have standard 7/8" height entrances to place the vaporizer in under the frames.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I vaporize my nucs from the top, but it's a pain. I might come up with something to do just that though.

I am particularly worried about the OAD possibly causing some damage to the queen? OAV I am not worried about.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Sorry: I missed the OA drizzle> No experience with it at all.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I'm just wondering how long you intend to keep bees in a mating nuc?

If you start with fairly clean treated bees, I'd think they would not be in there long enough for a buildup to occur.

But now you have me wondering about rigging the queen castle so the OAV system can be placed under the whole thing and get all 4 apartments at once. It is essentially a 10-frame deep.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Yes, I have been noodling on a way to treat all 4 from the top with OAV all at once. Bees were fairly clean, but a broodless opportunity in May is something I'd rather not pass up. Some of these bees will end up in 5 framers in a couple weeks (or less) and some queens may end up sold/traded/caged for requeening. The OAD is intriguing, seems simple enough. Mix up a batch and give each nuc a syringe worth.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

You could do a sugar dusting on them every day very quickly. With only 2 frames, it would be effective and not hard on them. Generally, its not a very effective way to treat, but given this circumstance, it may be just the right thing. J


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Today is Thursday May 12. On Monday, May 9th, I performed a non supported treatment on my mating nucs. This is not supported anywhere, so I'm just relating what I did and the results.

I mixed up an OAD mixture and put in a trigger spray bottle, and used it to spray the seams between frames in my mating nucs. I used a very narrow spray setting that was so slight it was almost a stream. Some spray did get on top bars. I used it to just spray between boxes and under top lid in my main hives. I just now came in (3 days later) from checking all mating nucs. My nucs are 4 frame deeps. All queens are looking great, laying as I watched during the inspection. The bees all look fine. Some nucs had sealed brood, some were newly laying so there was no sealed brood, or brood was just starting to be sealed. Everything looks great. Now I'm going out to check on a couple of the main hives, but here is the mixture solution I used. It came from Randy Oliver's web site but he does not really recommend it as it is not made up by weight, but by volume instead. AND he does not support using a trigger spray bottle that I know of. Here is what I used...

5oz (in a measuring cup) of HOT water.
1 level tablespoon (same as 3 teaspoons) of very fine oxalic acid crystals.
stir until clear.
Add in 5oz (in a measuring cup) of sugar.
Let set and stir occasionally until clear.
Put in trigger spray bottle and spray seams in hives/nucs.

I did this because I know of one person that was the main lead worker for a commercial operation, and he said this is what they did. I must stress that this way is not supported in any main stream articles or publications that I know of. I'm just reporting for informational purposes what I did and the results. Do your own research!



From Randy Oliver's website here, at the bottom of the article...
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-treatment-table/



Feedback from Jeanne Hansen, Madison, WI:

The reason I am writing to you is to remark that, as a hobby beekeeper with a single hive to treat with oxalic acid, I had some trouble with the recipes on your web site. I don’t have a balance delicate enough to weigh 6g of oxalic acid, and besides I only wanted to make half a dose, using 3g. My only metric measuring container is in my kitchen, marked in Cups, with a few little metric amounts on it. It’s not very accurate. To solve my problem, I visited my friend’s lab, and found out how much oxalic acid (wood bleach from the hardware store) fits in a standard teaspoon. 

I know you like raw data, so here it is: 

Aluminum teaspoon Plastic teaspoon

4.6g 3.6

3.8 3.6

3.7 3.8

3.8 3.6

3.8 3.7 

Discarding the outlier (spoon was probably not leveled off) the average value is 3.7g oxalic acid per teaspoon.

Thanks, Jeanne! I also tried measuring oxalic crystals in teaspoons, but found much greater variability, so I hesitate to publish this. However, here goes:

If you absolutely don’t want to use a postal scale, or a cheap digital scale (plenty on the web for under $10), then an approximate dilution would be 3 tsp oxalic crystals to 5 fl. oz each of water and granulated sugar. This will give you a bit over a cup of treated syrup, or enough to treat about 4 colonies (or 3 really strong ones). Don’t try to mix any less, just discard the excess!


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Ray, I was just reading that exact RO article last night. I think I will mix some up and give them a 5 mL dose for each nuc.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Good Luck, I hope your results are at least as good as mine were JW. It sounds like you are going to use a syringe instead of a spray bottle, that will give you a more exact treatment dose. I'm sure it will also depend on how thick the bees are in each seam.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

What you did sounds about like what Oliver suggests with a pump sprayer. 
You just didn't meter it first. I've seen videos of the commercial guys doing a dribble, they're not screwing around.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

you need an OAV gadget, haven't you seen one?


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

jwcarlson said:


> ...I've seen videos of the commercial guys doing a dribble, they're not screwing around.


Yea JW, I'm not into the time inefficiency of dragging around a car battery and vaporizing for 2-3 minutes then closing up the hive for ten minutes while cooling down the unit to reload for the next hive... forget it, time is better spent on other hive management chores if a qucker more efficient way can be found. So, that's why I'm experimenting with this method. It's quick and easy to do while performing hive checks in the bee yard, much more so than doing OAV. This is the second time I've done it this way in the main hives, first time on the mating nucs, and so far it's looking good to me. But I do have to say that I'm not recommending this way of treating for any one else, it's just something I'm experimenting around with for myself in my own beeyard.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Understood, Ray. I was hoping someone would suggest it unprompted, don't worry about me fliping out if it doesn't work or something, I'll own it.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Harley Craig said:


> you need an OAV gadget, haven't you seen one?


I've been hearing about those. I bet they are nice'uns.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Brad Bee said:


> I've been hearing about those. I bet they are nice'uns.


All you need is aluminum foil, a hole saw, and a tea candle and you're on your way, Brad!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I can understand the desire to not use synthetics, however from time to time i have used synthetics on nucs with virgins and despite all the hype about the damage they do to bees navigation systems etc, I can not honestly say I have noticed any difference in mating success or quality of the resulting queens. High mite levels probably do more damage.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Are you going to let these build up or are you going to use them again? If the queens are being transferred to bigger nucs with bees/brood its possible treating the mating nuc will have no significant effect.

If you are letting them build on their own, you could do a controlled experiment with dribble on half, no treatment on the other. Once they get going do some mite counts and see how they build up for a comparison. 

In theory a brood break should knock down mites as well and I believe oxalic acid may have some negatives on bee/queen health. It could become a case of equal pros and cons. Extra management is not always justified, this coming from a guy who is discovering his hidden micromanagement tendencies.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Oldtimer said:


> I can understand the desire to not use synthetics, however from time to time i have used synthetics on nucs with virgins and despite all the hype about the damage they do to bees navigation systems etc, I can not honestly say I have noticed any difference in mating success or quality of the resulting queens. High mite levels probably do more damage.


For me, it's not the aversion to synthetics, it's more about the cost of treatment. OA is the cheapest treatment I have ever tried, it sure beats the cost of Apivar, which by the way works real well for me. I'm trying to find a cheaper but time efficient way of varroa treatment that works.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Oldtimer said:


> I can understand the desire to not use synthetics, however from time to time i have used synthetics on nucs with virgins and despite all the hype about the damage they do to bees navigation systems etc, I can not honestly say I have noticed any difference in mating success or quality of the resulting queens. High mite levels probably do more damage.


OT, I'm not worried about any of what you describe. Just don't want to use them, the "organic" acids seem to be working well as long as I stay on top of them (and use them at the correct times) and, I think, because they're broodless a one time OA treatment either vaporized or dribbled is the right option here. Was just looking for some confirmation. 



lharder said:


> In theory a brood break should knock down mites as well and I believe oxalic acid may have some negatives on bee/queen health. It could become a case of equal pros and cons. Extra management is not always justified, this coming from a guy who is discovering his hidden micromanagement tendencies.


The first round are strong enough to build on their own. They were stronger when I made them by far. The others were made up from the cell builder and had not brood with them at all. I will likely, at some point, boost the second round queens with brood (will have to unless I'm going to sell them or requeen with them). Some may be destined for that.

If I treat, I'm going to treat them all. I've seen a number of mites on them and ones made up from colonies that I didn't use MAQS on last summer and instead relied on OAV have had a DWV crawler or two.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes well you certainly don't want crawler producing mite levels in your mating nucs. I'm with Iharder though, in that I'd be reluctant to use OA dribble in a nuc with a virgin due to possible stomch upset issues (of the bbes and queen, not me LOL). But having said that I've never tried it so maybe the way to go is try your plan and see how the results are afterwards.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

All of the ones that would be treated are mated and laying now, OT. Does that change your opinion?


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> All you need is aluminum foil, a hole saw, and a tea candle and you're on your way, Brad!


You better be careful posting stuff like that on a website that you don't have to be 18 years old to view what you're talking about. It's best to post that kind of thing on Youtube and restrict it.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

jwcarlson said:


> All of the ones that would be treated are mated and laying now, OT. Does that change your opinion?


Yes.


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## JTGaraas (Jun 7, 2014)

"I would OAV them, but the appliance doesn't fit well in my queen castle, so that would take some tricks to get done."

Bee packages can be subjected to oxalic acid vaporization (OAV) after placement in a cardboard box, and then performing the operation. No need to insert the wand inside the queen castle.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

JT, a package is contained in a nice little box that makes that easy. I'd have to transfer them to another box, close up vaporize, and then transfer back. No thanks. 
I also want to try a dribble anyway as I haven't done it before.


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## JTGaraas (Jun 7, 2014)

JW, my suggestion was probably too consise. I was trying to get you to think "outside the box". 

I recognize a package of bees is probably screened on two (2) sides, and I neglected to include a suggestion that you need to place some form of screen (#8 screen if you want to insure no bee movement, along with plugging each hive box entry hole) over the top of the queen castle so as to provide a means for entry of the oxalic vapors. The vapors will circulate within the entire cardboard box, to include the interior of the queen castle, apparently with the assistance of fanning bees. So the full suggestion #1 is to vaporize with use of a cardboard box, and screen over the top (along with the vaporization device and oxalic acid). No frame movement is required.

Suggestion #2 is to simply vaporize from the top. Create a simple 2" or 3" box the size of your queen castle, permanently cover the bottom with #8 screen, and create a means of entry for your vaporization device on one (1) side (I use a vertical slot the same size of the vaporization device that can also be readily sealed. You can also install a permanent metal resting pad for your device inside the box. I then place a plexiglass cover over the top, perform the function of vaporization, and get to watch the actual spread of the mite-killing vapors (along with full respirator/eye protection). Make sure there is adequate distance between device and plexiglass because of heat. The vapors come straight up, and roll out and down into the hive box. Again, no frame movement will occur.

Should you be concerned about bee movement from one area into another during the set-up, I suspect that putting either screen (suggestion #1) or screened box (suggestion #2) over the queen castle and pulling covers individually should work (followed by re-insertion of each cover individually at the end of the process).

Our spring in North Dakota has yet to fully arrive. I have not yet been able to do a full inspection due to low temperatures, so doing an oxalic dribble is out of the realm of possibilities for me -wet bees and chilled brood; not good!

Good luck.


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## mbevanz (Jul 23, 2012)

I would be hesitant to treat anything large or small during mating. I don't think it is a good idea to mess with the "smell" of the hive.
This comes from my mentor, commercial for 45 years.


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