Oxybee 1L

01 · PREPARING AND APPLYING IT

Powder, solution and a syringe

Mix the powder from the sachets with the solution in the bottle, warm the lot in water at 30-35 °C and shake until it is fully dissolved. Then trickle it over the bees, in the spaces between frames that are occupied: 5 to 6 ml per gap and never more than 54 ml per hive. It goes on with a syringe or a dosing gun — not included — and it is a trickle treatment: it is not sprayed.

02 · THE BROODLESS WINDOW

One single application, at the right moment

The datasheet specifies one treatment per colony. The moment is when there is no capped brood: in the natural break of winter, or in an induced one — caging the queen, removing brood, making up nuclei or requeening. With capped brood inside, most of the mites are where the oxalic acid cannot reach them, and the result will disappoint however well you apply it.

03 · TEMPERATURE

The datasheet says 3 °C; we say 15

The datasheet allows application above 3 °C outdoors. Our experience with the Iberian bee is different and worth stating: at low temperatures we have seen excessive mortality, so we advise not going below 15 °C and, if you can choose, applying it above 20 °C, where mortality is minimal. In winter, in the middle hours of the day.

04 · WHAT TO EXPECT

Some dead bees, and no waiting for the honey

Like every trickled oxalic treatment, it can cause slight mortality among the bees; with the dose and the temperature respected it is minimal. The honey withdrawal period is zero days, but it is not used with honey supers on or during a flow. And one practical advantage of the format: once reconstituted it keeps for a year in the fridge, even if the date on the unopened bottle is earlier.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

No veterinary prescription required; if you need one for your holding records, ask and it goes with the order. We dispense it as a retail establishment for veterinary medicines, no. V-48-VC. In a Layens hive with open top bars the trickling is done without moving frames.