How To Use Mite Away Quick Strips

[Music] hello bearded people welcome back to being KB's so today I am out yeah actually Wednesday Thursday Friday and tomorrow out distributing my weight click strips and get questions about my weight strips often and I wanted to do kind of a how-to but I don't want this to be a substitute for the directions on the package I've obviously read the directions and used it quite a few times but I urge you to read the directions on this before you use it twice because it is so super important that this treatment is applied correctly because applied correctly it can be extremely effective but applied incorrectly it can be extremely damaging so the active ingredient in might away quick strips this formic acid and it's it's a strong and harsh chemical um but like I said when when used correctly it can be extremely effective against both varroa mites and tracheal mites so it is an essential tool in my beekeeping tool shed and I love to use it here in August before our winter bees are being weird we live in an area of the country or an area on earth where we are able to use it during August whereas I know a lot of you guys who are south of me we're in Michigan a lot of you guys who are south if we don't have that ability it might just be too hot but if you have the ability to use formic acid in August and by that I mean your temperatures are under about 85 degrees Fahrenheit or so then I highly highly recommend it so like I said definitely read the directions because it is super important that you use these correctly but I will give you my rundown of how I do it first off I have to make sure that on the day of application that the temperatures are below consistently below not reaching just for a bit eighty-five degrees so today is like 78 degrees or so and it's just about perfect and then other than that first day you really want to worry about the first three or so days of the treatment because that's when the vapor from these strips is going to be the strongest so you really want to keep the temperature under under 85 on that first day and under about 90 on those first three days so there are two different ways actually three different ways that I use might awake wicks trips and that would be the first one and the one I like to use the most here in this application and that is the strong harsh treatment with two strips for one week another method that I use and I use this earlier on in the late spring or early summer and that would be one strip one time for about seven or so days I would say about ten days because that's usually how long I leave them on there but they're really not giving off any vapor after about seven days or so so you can come in and remove them after seven days and so the third treatment method would be one strip twice so you put one strip on for a week remove that strip and then put another strip on for another week that's a little bit less harsh on the B's so on the harsh on the B's subject on these should not be used in any straggler hives I mean really they have to be more than about eight or so frames of bees for me to feel comfortable putting this on in anyway and then doing the method that I'm gonna do today which is the strong harsh treatment I really need a boomin full ten frame box of these because they have to have the ability to move that air around on the inside of the Brut cavity lest you lose a lot of brood and a lot of bees and just see a lot of carnage outside of your hives so if I see anything here that maybe has swarmed and it's less than eight or so frames of bees I'll probably just put ones one treatment on if they're really really diminished then I'll probably not treat them with formic acid at all I will come back through with an oxalic acid blast or two so like I said I'm gonna use the two strip treatment today and I will show you how I go about that always wear gloves wear a respirator if you have it and it's convenient for you it's not quite as big of a deal as it is for oxalic acid but the gloves are a necessity you will lose a lot of skin if you don't wear gloves I'm not kidding okay so it looks like it's good good-looking about the bees I am going to scrape off some area or these strips are gonna go in opposite corners of this box okay now I'm gonna go grab some strip okay now he's opening with the hive tool just lay them against the green and opposite corner I'm gonna get the stuff off of this inner cover standing the inner cover will sit down flush alright now just make sure it sits down tight and you're good another thing to keep in mind is that you have to have a full wide-open entrance if they don't have enough ventilation then you are likely to see a lot of dead bees and a lot of dead brood but if they have the full open entrance and there's a boomin box or two boxes of bees it's a really super effective treatment if it was two boxes of bees I would have done the same exact thing but it was just then in between the two brood areas and then if you were going to use the softer treatment or either one of the two softer treatments it would be one strip right in the dead center of the box against the grain of the frames so I think that's it I'll probably think of some other things if you have any questions leave them in the comment section below and I'll chat with you about them but that's my general how-to once again please read the directions don't take this video as you know the substitute for breeding the directions you really really should read those twice because as I said it can be a dangerous tool if used improperly but it's super effective if used properly so thanks for watching get out there and have some fun with your bees see ya

Channel: B&K Bees

Views: 13,542

Keywords: bees, beekeeping, mite treatments, mite away quick strips, maqs, formic acid, treatments for mites, bkbees, b&k bees, brett kozma

Id: e93sVD1INNE

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2019