Scientific Beekeeping

Crystals from oxalic acid vaporization on bees’ bodies Randy Oliver February 2020 In order to determine how OA crystals settled on bees’ bodies after an OA vaporization, I set a graduated microscope slide and a number of dead bees under a 16-oz inverted plastic cup.  I injected OA vapor briefly into a hole at the The post Oxalic crystals on…

Mite Control While Honey is on the Hive Part 4 First Published in ABJ February 2021 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com   In the three previous articles in this series, I showed the results of my field trial of summer mite treatments. Now let’s go a little further with extended-release oxalic acid (OAE).   A Note on The post Mite Control While…

Mite Control While Honey is on the Hive Part 3 First Published in ABJ January 2021 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com   In my two previous articles in this series, I showed the formal results of my field trial comparing summer mite treatments.  We also have additional findings from other yards in which we applied extended-release OA.  The post Mite Control While…

Mite Control While Honey is on the Hive Part 2 First Published in ABJ December 2020 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com   Last month I covered the setup of my field trial of summertime mite treatments, including experimental extended-release oxalic acid in glycerin.  I’ll now share the results.     The Results and Discussion Due to space limitations, The post Mite Control While…

Mite Control While Honey is on the Hive Part 1 First Published in ABJ November 2020 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com   During our hot, dry California summers most of our nectar flow may be over by early July, but if we’re lucky, our hives may still put on some harvestable honey.  In any case, to control The post Mite Control While…

Refining the Mite Wash: Part 3 Dislodgement, Precipitation, and Separation Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in September 2020 In my last article I showed how mites will quickly drop off the bees’ bodies if immersed in 91% alcohol.  But there are still more steps remaining to separate the mites from the sample of The post Refining the Mite…

Refining the Mite Wash : Part 4 Comparing the Release Agents Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in September 2020 As I tested different release agents for varroa monitoring, I was often surprised by the results, which then raised new questions about why some worked better than others. So I ran a number of The post Refining the Mite…

I wrote about initial colony buildup at http://scientificbeekeeping.com/modeling-nuc-buildup/  I created a spreadsheet model that allows you to estimate and visualize how different methods of starting colonies affects the colony age structure and growth.  I works for package, nucs started with laying queens, queen cells, or walkaway splits. Nuc calculator share version The post Starting colony buildup calculator appeared first on…

Refining the Mite Wash- Part 2 Mite Release Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in August 2020 The high efficacy of hand dishwashing detergent at getting mites to release their grip on bees bestirred me to investigate this finding more deeply.  What I’ve come to realize is that there are four steps involved between The post Refining the Mite…

The math is sometimes confusing for the mixing of sugar syrups. I’ve created a calculator that allow you to quickly determine how much granulated sugar or commercial 77% solids sugar syrup to add to create a specified amount of sugar syrup at any desired concentration. Download the spreadsheet here:  @Syrup calculator The post Sugar syrup calculator appeared first on Scientific…