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Meeting at the Turners', June 2006

Meeting at the Turners', June 2006

Last Updated (Wednesday, 05 August 2009 15:48) Written by Administrator Wednesday, 05 August 2009 15:32

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This meeting was in the evening of Friday 16th June 2006. On arriving, we went through a couple of John's colonies at which point our speaker, Ian Molyneux, talked to us about detecting Pytheroid resistant varroa mites and how to kill the varroa mites with very dilute oxalic acid, trickled between the frames in a hive.

To demonstrate how to test for pytheroid resistance, Ian took a sample of bees from one of John's hives and put it into a small plastic tub. Then, he placed a strip of apistan, a pytheroid chemical for killing varroa, into the tub through a special opening before leaving the tub for a while to allow the varroa mites affected by the apistan to drop out of the tub:

We then looked through another of John's hives, a newly housed swarm, in which Ian showed us the correct technique for using oxalic acid, and how to prepare it.

Following this, we all ate from the shared table, to which many of the guests had contributed, and enjoyed a few drinks and a talk with friends.