Oxalic/varroa treatments in top bar hive?

[Amber88]

Hi everyone, I'm a beginner hobbyist near rural Pukekohe, Ive got a top bar which I wasn't planning to use this season until I had had a season of beekeeping experience with my langstroth boxes first. Anyway my bees had other ideas and swarmed last month, the swarm split in two, (2 virgin Queens?) and I managed to rehome one into my top bar, Queen was mated and they now appear to be going great guns. I'm trying to do lots of reading up on tbh's but of course there is not a whole of info out there and I'm wanting to be prepared to make sure I do their first varroa treatment in the tbh successfully. How do others treat their tbh's with oxalic? I'm guessing strips are not going to be effective enough?

Apologies for the novel and thanks for reading!

Amber

 

[Alastair]

As in oxalic vapor? If so tends to not be effective in TBH's because there is a lot of empty space in most TBH's, combined with the spread out nature of the combs.

I have had excellent success treating TBH's with Apivar strips. It does mean the combs have to be prized apart slightly during the treatment period to allow the strip to fit between, however the bars can be moved back together once treatment removed. 2 strips will treat most TBH's, just position the strips among the brood, not outside of it.

 

[Amber88]

As in oxalic vapor? If so tends to not be effective in TBH's because there is a lot of empty space in most TBH's, combined with the spread out nature of the combs.

I have had excellent success treating TBH's with Apivar strips. It does mean the combs have to be prized apart slightly during the treatment period to allow the strip to fit between, however the bars can be moved back together once treatment removed. 2 strips will treat most TBH's, just position the strips among the brood, not outside of it.

Hi Alastair, thanks for your reply. I should have stated I meant the oxalic cardboard strips you can make. I was planning to order the hobbyist oxalic kit for my langstroths and suddenly wondered if I'd be able to use them in the same fashion with the tbh

 

[Alastair]

Yes you can.

Just be aware people have had mixed results with these whatever the hive type.

 

[tristan]

Hi Alastair, thanks for your reply. I should have stated I meant the oxalic cardboard strips you can make. I was planning to order the hobbyist oxalic kit for my langstroths and suddenly wondered if I'd be able to use them in the same fashion with the tbh

i'm doing OAE testing at the moment.

the issues i can see with a TBH (assuming its the usual one they make) is that the length of the strip compared to the frame. the strip needs to be a fair bit shorter than the frame, which posses an issue if you put the strip off centre. ie if you move the strip sideways a bit, its going to be to long due to the angle of the frame and block the path for the queen to move.
the other is size of the strip compared to the brood, it may pay to run thinner strips to account for the smaller tbh frames.

realistically, i think your going to have a real hand full with just the beekeeping side of things and the OAE strips will make things very very complicated.

 

[Amber88]

i'm doing OAE testing at the moment.

the issues i can see with a TBH (assuming its the usual one they make) is that the length of the strip compared to the frame. the strip needs to be a fair bit shorter than the frame, which posses an issue if you put the strip off centre. ie if you move the strip sideways a bit, its going to be to long due to the angle of the frame and block the path for the queen to move.
the other is size of the strip compared to the brood, it may pay to run thinner strips to account for the smaller tbh frames.

realistically, i think your going to have a real hand full with just the beekeeping side of things and the OAE strips will make things very very complicated.

Thanks for your input, that sounds interesting. I'm going to see how I go with oxalic strips now once they arrive and I'll use conventional strips again in Autumn. I would really like to be able to use oxalic only eventually but one step at a time!