Mite Away Quick Strip Treatment Questions

[Coral Conant Gilles]

Hi,

I'm thinking about treating my hive with mite away quick strips.  I have never treated before.  All advice is appreciated.  I also have some specific questions.

1.  Directions say to place it between the 2 brood chambers.   I have a hive of 5 mediums with no queen excluder.  Of course, I would do an inspection first, but I expect there is brood in all 5 boxes, concentrated in 3.  Does anyone have experience with this situation?  Will it work?  In what configuration?

2.  I'm intimidated by the need for a respirator.  What do you use?  

3. It sounds like absconding is somewhat common.  What can I do to minimize the risk?

4. I've chosen this treatment because it's a chemical naturally occurring in food an other aspects of life (ants), formic acid is present in honey and supers can stay on, it's easy.  I can do it at the temperatures I expect during the next couple weeks (down to 50 degrees in the day).  Is there a treatment that you think would be better for me?

Thank you so much!  I always have more questions than answers.

Coral

[Matthew Hennek]

1. I run large hives, so like you see brood in multiple chambers.  Typically I find brood in the bottom 3 chambers.  If you want to do a full dose (2 strips), put one between bottom box and second box and then the second on top of the second box.  If you find brood in all 5 boxes, you can cut them in half and put half a strip on each box.  

2.  I use a 3M respirator that has cartridges for organic acid gasses (or multi purpose).  You can buy it from Home Depot.  Technically you could probably get away with not using one if you stay up wind and hold your breath.  Personally, I would buy a respirator.  They're only $40 and good to use for other things (like painting). The term you want to look for is OV/AG (organic vapor acid gas). 

http://www.homedepot.com/p/3M-Medium-Professional-Multi-Purpose-Respirator-62023HA1-C/202080144

I can bring one to the October meeting if you want, but that might be too late.

Important: BUY/WEAR butyl rubber gloves.  The thick heavy rubber gloves.  Thin nitrile ones will work, but I like the thick butyl rubber ones.  The acid will damage bee gloves or can you severe chemical burns if no gloves are worn.

3.  Temperature is the big thing.  This week would be great.

4. Apiguard might be a good option if you don't want to use MAQS.  It's thymol based.  I've never used it because I prefer not to use chemicals that could build up in the wax (i.e. hydrophobic), but that's just my preference.  Others have used it with success, so perhaps they can chime in.    

~Matt

[mar...@chicagobees.com]

I think it's important to do a pre and post treatment mite count to see how effective the treatment was.
Just because you don't use a queen excluder doesn't mean that there's brood in all 5 boxes. But if there is, personally I would arrange it in a way where it's consolidated and place food above it. If you don't want to rearrange the hive and find brood in all hive bodies, I would concentrate on where the most capped brood is. The advantage that maqs have over other forms of treatments is that they penetrate the brood cappings and kill the mites inside.
Any treatment can have unintended consequences. Majority of the issues associated with maqs are temperature related. As long as you the temps are below the upper limit ( especially during the first 3 days ), any issues should be minimal. If the colony starts queen replacement, in my opinion, the queen wasn't strong/healthy to begin with.
As Matthew said, use protective equipment, especially gloves. The right kind of gloves.

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