It was all there was till Api-Bioxal got a licence.
I see Thornes are advertising it as a cleaner for the boxes although there is still information on treating bees with it.
I’m sure they will remove that sooner or later
Did the vap today - who expects the Spanish inquisition?? Logged.
About 6 varroa on Board since I wiped it for Emerald - Sapphire had none as per usual
Good. Nice clean start to the year.
I still have brood in mine so I’m hanging back till there are no brood cappings on the trays.
The Spanish Inquisition was a joke, you know.
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not if your a Monty Python fan LOL
Hi,
Back to the original topic, we are near Sydney and would suggest morning sun and afternoon shade if you can get it for summer - ideally full sun for winter (we don’t have this but we have quite warm winter days anyway). Many say it doesn’t matter but I’m inclined to think that at least for my microclimate that afternoon shade is good if you can get it.
We don’t insulate our standard langstroth hive but the hive Husband built is constructed of much thicker wood (due to weight we will never move it!).
We have a polystyrene cover for our native bees but no extra insulation for our honeybees.
All the best with you bees
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Thanks Jasbee, that sounds like a good plan, I can do morning sun & afternoon shaded-summer & move couple of metres for full winter sun. I think this is something I’m going to do a bit of deeper research into over time too. There has to be an alternative to polystyrene, surely? And I am more convinced now than when I first began to think about it that there is a case (or will be soon, as temps rise) for insulating against heat. What sort of timber did you make your own hive from & how much thicker is it? I wonder if it would be beneficial to have at least the brood box made from a better insulated form?
Much to ponder & further look into…
Thanks Dee, even though we are not yet facing the V prob its great to have this sort of info from experienced Beeks. I have been reading about the B Variant, DWV & to me Bees higher survival rate on own comb makes sense too.
Let us know how the Oxalic compares to the Formic, would be interested to know. Also something that a forum like this could be useful for, people could record/report results, although a lot of variants to consider too.
@Kirsten_Redlich
I hope you never get Varroa. You have enough problems with SHB!!
I notice from a few peoples’ posts about their locality, flowers and climate that forage must be available for a really good part of the year so the bees would hardly have a period without brood…so you would have to keep a close eye on varroa levels all the time. At least here we have a rest between October and March 
We are getting a lot of good reports about Oxalic vapour and Prof Ratnieks of Sussex University fame has just published a paper backing that up. (his previous paper was a joke. He reported that there was a nearly 100% kill with oxalic trickling mid winter if you opened the hives, checked for brood and removed any you found before you did it.
Some scientists don’t appreciate the real world!!!
Anyway, the winter treatment is just a mop up after your autumn one and lots don’t bother.
I agree with that …
Oxalic Acid is a wood bleach and I only vaporize it to bleach and preserve my woodenware. I read somewhere that it kills varroa but I don’t use it for that purpose.