My main concern with the Apithor trap is people ripping it apart to see the dead beetles. This exposes them to the fipronil poison and also makes the stuff accessible to non target critters including bees. Provided the trap is used according to the directions, I see no problem with contamination.
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@Bryan_Peterson. I donāt think flow sells the keys separately at this point in time. I have 3 keys, get one with each flow hive I buy, so I could give you one. I always use 2 keys to harvest and have not observed any torsional deflections.
Alternatively you could use your one key in the slot several times, center, left, right, center. Even with 2 keys I turn it several times, feeling for resistance, just to be sure. Thatās just me the perfectionist.
Looking forward to the answer you will get from Cedar. Gross to find larvae in your honey.
Wasnāt it fibronil ant sand that Egbert used in his hive? The bees got killed by the fumes and didnāt go down to the broodbox for 2 weeks. But I donāt think there can be that much fibronil in the trap. He had used a couple of handfuls.
Fipronil has a very low vapour pressure so it wouldnāt have been evaporating and wiping out Egbertās bees. Perhaps his ant sand had a different active ingredient or else bees had physical access to the sand. If bees had been able to walk on the ant sand, they could have been poisoned that way. Apithor is bee safe because bees are physically kept away from the bait by the design of the trap. No such protection with ant sand. Fipronil is a slow acting poison so any bee crawling over the sand would carry the poison back to the nest. There, bee to bee contact would spread the toxin.
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thanks Ki A I , will take you up on that offer of a second flow key. Iām already turning the key multiple times and working it over the whole channel width as you suggest. Having two keys would make that process a lot easier Iām sure. I returned the two suspect frames to the super yesterday as I couldnāt see anything wrong with them. Got into a bit of trouuble tho as I failed to zip my suit up properly and ended up sharing my hood and gloves with some very angry bees! Yowch! Got stung multiple times!! Dāoh!! Note to self: Must make sure I have an assistant with me next time to check on suit before working on open hives. Only a couple of larvae which I removed by hand, and definitely SHB as I can see three pairs of legs at the head end, about 8-10mm long overall. Refractometer came in handy as one frame was 90% capped and returned 17.5% water whereas other frame was only 10%capped and returned 21%water. Decided not to mix this last cell with my good honey.
Glad you find that refractometer useful. But you knew you would get that result with just 10% capping. There sure is merit in what the experienced beeks say.
Come up any time to fetch that spare key. I have one unopened flow frame box, it must be in there.
I have put an arnia hive observation system on my birthday wishlist. I asked @Dawn_SD for her experience with it. Canāt wait!
Itās the only item on my wishlist. Yay!
Ouch about the gap in your suit. You are here, so assume the reaction wasnāt too bad.
The Apithor has been rigorously tested and gone through strict approval processes which partly explains itās cost.
I have never had an issue with them, nor have I met anyone that has.
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I ended up using Apithor in 2 of my 4 hives as I noticed a large number of SHB & was unable to do regular inspections for a long period of time. I was reluctant to put them into the hive but felt i might have been giving the beeās a better chance of managing the SHB. On 2 occasions during summer we had very heavy rain (78mm in 30 mins & 82mm in 1hr) to my horror on checking the hives immediately afterwards I found that 1 of the hives had been flooded & the bees poisoned. I opened the hive & removed the Apithor but it had already affected 1/3 of the hive. It was really horrible to see them suffering. So I would say that whilst effective you need to be 100% positive that your hive is watertight. I have since only used the beetle traps that sit on top/between frames, & with strong colonies these are as effective. Iāve also found that the 2 hives that had the Apithor had hive rubbish on the base ( & larvae in this detritus), especially behind the Apithor case & around the sides. Once I removed the cases they kept the bottom board spotless. Iām unsure if Iād use them again.
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So did the affected colony survive?
Soooooo glad we donāt have shb over here.
I just find this really difficult to understand. How much water ended up in your hive? Why was there water on the bottom board? Especially enough to inundate the Apithor?
Even during torrential rain when I was in QLD, the bottom board didnāt flood.
Was your hive tilted forward with the Apithor at the back of the hive?
Was the opening of the Apithor pointing out to the sides of the hive?
I just struggle to understand how that much water could be present in a hive in the first place? If itās enough to inundate the Apithor, it would easily be deep enough for bees to get stranded/drown in.
Apithor warn about the trap being inundated with water (as a precaution) but I just donāt see how you get to that point.
Agreed.
I wonder if roaches help prevent shbā¦
It might have been the angle the rain was coming down. When the rsin comes from the northnorth west it can be on from 45 degree angle to horrizontal. tge rain is almost horizontal. And the hive entrance is pointed north. An unfortunate combo. And it sound like a fixed bottom board.
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I know, we do get horizontal rain over here when we get a real storm. A drowned apithor happened to another guy I know too. They warn of that in the apithor instructions. Sorry about your bees. Those SHB are full on at the moment. Hot and humid. Bring on winter.
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Weāve had torrential rain for the past two days 300mm in 8 hrs.luckily there was rain without wind and not too much touched the hive. We has some notice of the storm and i had time to before the Storm to move the apithor trap from the corflute tray to sit the top of the flow frames and as i did i thought about your post.
I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that the apithor trap sat on the corflute -so the bees could chase the beetles thru the screen and beetles would hide in the trapā¦ etc. but is it more effective to have the trap inside the hive under the lid?
Yes the hive was tilted forward, Apithor at rear of hive with 'entrances pointing to sides, & everything aligned. I donāt know why there was enough in there either? I had inspected the hive the day prior to it happening & broke the seal between the boxes, perhaps there was so much running down the sides of the hive? I donāt have a landing board on this hive either. I have not had any evidence of water in the other hives nor in this one since (but we havenāt had rainfall like that again). Look, it may be a 1 in a million chance, but it is enough for me not to want to use them again. And I must stress that I was uneasy about using them in the first place, it is not a decision I would normally have made.
I do realise that they say not to use if there is hives are subject to inundation, but I certainly didnāt think that would happen to mine. They are on top of breeze blocks 2 high, facing south east & we are on a steep hillside. This hive is the only one however that was completely out in open on grass. the other hives have low shrubs, nearby down each side of them which did give a lot of protection.
This is from the first 5 mins. We have a split level home And the downstairs was flooded in 10 mins, to ankle depth.
This is the ātameā part of our garden the hives are another 300m up the hill
There was no water collected on the base of the hive & the bees were dry themselves. I canāt locate the photos I have to sort through about 2000 images Iāve just dumped over the last 4 months, but will find in the next week.
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They survived! There were still bees affected & dying exiting the hive for the next 3 days. I picked up 3 large take away containers full of dead or dying bees. I have watched them very closely & gave them 2 frames of hatching brood from another colony to boost their numbers, and have been feeding. They are now back on track with 8 frames capped honey (or sugar syrup + a bit of Banksia) & 4 more 1/2 full. Thank you for asking.
I think the fact that I checked them immediately & removed into clean hive made a big difference. That is one of my concerns, what if you arenāt present when it happens, you would definitely lose the colony as I could smell that the substance had permeated the wood also.
There is a very small piece of text in the information provided, not very prominent, which states that if your hives are possibly subject to inundation not to use this product.
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It does say not to use Apithor on SBBās.