Top Bar Beekeeping Forum

[Daddy's Girl]

http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/insects/pollinat/varroa/treatmix.htm
http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/insects/pollinat/varroa/varroa2.htm

Everything here sounds great, but how do we adapt it to HTBH?

Since some of the action they suggest here relies on the spacing of a Langstroth hive, and many of us start out with top bars that don't have spacers, there's no immediately practical way to use the oil mixture on a paper towel.

Same with the grease patties. Though it might be possible to apply the grease patty compound itself to the edges of the top bars themselves before pushing them back into position at closing time. Cumbersome at best. Might be able to apply the compound to the inside of the hive itself somehow, but I am unsure of how well that would work(and it would make a big mess).

Tracking strips are actually doable two ways. Either as a landing porch on the outside, or as something applied to the area directly around the entrance of the hive. All that is required is that the bees are forced to walk through it to land or leave.

Thoughts? I'd especially like to see what Professor thinks about this and if he's come up with any ideas for HTBH applications(he posted the links to begin with).
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Live dangerously or not at all

[charker]

Instead of paper towels, could you use strips of blotter paper or cardboard - maybe even felt or webbing? Maybe you could pick an absorbent material, cut strips of it that are a bit wider than your TBs are tall, soak them, then tack them to the sides of the TBs you wish to treat. If the edges of the card/cloth strips hang down below the bottom of the TBs perhaps they will diffuse the menthol into the beespace to some effect. But they would hang down into that beespace. Does anyone know if that would bother the bees?

A grease patty could be hung on a follower board or even from an empty TB.

One detail in the second link that made me jump was the suggestion of 4 cups sugar, 2 cups shortening and 21cc of tea tree oil. I have read about and used tea tree oil as a remedy for nail fungus (there's nothing better) and earaches (not bad). As I was reading about it I noticed a recurring theme: NOT FOR INTERNAL USE. One site recommended 2 drops - and no more - in 8oz of water for a mouth wash. Every other use was topical. When I put a drop or two on the side of my neck near the Eustachian tube, my earache went away. When I spread seven or eight drops on the same area, it gave me a headache, a burning sensation & slight dizziness.

Consequently I have a healthy respect and a slight fear of the stuff. To me, this dosage seems frightfully high. Before I use that patty recipe I would like to know how it affected someone else's bees &/or hear more about the effects of tea tree oil on bees from someone who knows more about it than I do.

Thanks for the links, DG. Aside from my own TTO hangup, it looks like useful info.

[biobee]

[Tavascarow]

[HAB]

Ran across the same receipe in another forum except it was 21 drops.
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[biobee]

[Gary]

To answer part of the original question; anything that is in a solid or patty form placed on the frames of a Lang hive should be placed directly on the floor of a TBH don't worry they will get to it.
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Gary
www.hirschbachapiary.com
gary@hirschbachapiary.com

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