Oxalic Acid 2012

After a very successful demonstration of how to make oxalic acid from crystals and everybody had a practice with water on an empty hive. The Oxalic acid was applied to the hives on the 15th January 20121. Below are the results of the count which were done 4days and 2 hours after application.

4 day count
Hive	Seams	Mites
1	3	3
2	5	1
3	5	0
4	5	1
5	3	2
9	3	2
10	4	0
11	6	3
12	3	1
13	7	1
14	1	0
15	6	22
16	14	3
17	5	1
18	6	2
19	NO FLOOR	No count
20	Nuc	No count
22	7	0
D	Dead – Drone Layer

As you can see the mite drop was very low. This is in direct contrast to my hives at home were the count on some hives was estimated at 300 after only 3 days. There were so many I could not count. Now for a little background info. At the Apiary in Lydney we used the treatment of APIVAR Life - whilst at home I used Hive Clean in the autumn. Okay this is no true test as I think I always have more mites at home than in the Lydney apiary - but it is interesting.

Another interesting thing to note is that the hive at Lydney which gave the highest drop by some way was hive 15. Thid hive I am planning to re-queen because of temper issues but they gave the best crop of honey! The theory normal is that the nastier hives bring in more honey as they are disrupted less but all the bees get looked through as much as any other. I shall let you draw your own conclusions.