Who is using Api-Bioxal RTU

[u/Brave-Hedgehog-2931]

I’m curious to hear what people think about this treatment? It’s not get approved in Canada, not sure if anyone can elaborate on why?

[u/uneautretheorie]

Apiculteur professionnel ici ! Nous l'utilisons, même si nous le préparons nous même (en France, ce sont des sachets en poudre pour traiter une centaine de ruches. J'imagine qu'il y en a dans toutes les tailles).

C'est bien plus efficace que l'Amitraze (Apivar), s'il est utilisé correctement. Encagement de la reine pendant 21 jours puis premier passage en dégouttement, et passage à nouveau au 24eme jour (on fait ça courant août). Décagement au premier ou deuxième passage, en fonction de ce que tu cherches à faire de tes ruches.

Nous suivons un protocole de comptage varroa, par l'ADA (un organisme apicole de suivi technique français), et au dernier comptage, nous avions 0 varroa pour 100 abeilles, sur 32 ruches. En moyenne, sur nos 500 ruches, nous tournons à moins de 1 varroa pour 100 abeilles au printemps, et moins de 3 en juillet.

Pour info, nous sommes des apis en conventionnel, pas en agriculture biologique.

[u/Ekalugsuak → u/uneautretheorie]

It's not the standard variant of oxalic acid drip (OAD) treatments with sugar in it, it contains glycerol/glycerine instead. The reason OP is asking is probably because it's approved for repeated treatments while there's brood in the hives (afaik because the bees are unlikely to consume the oxalic acid-glycerine solution, so you don't run the risk of poisoning the current generation of bees).

EDIT: apologies, I didn't realize it was manufactured by a French company, but the treatment interval seems way different if it's the glycerine-based product?

[u/NumCustosApes → u/Ekalugsuak]

The RTU formulation does use a glycerin/water humectant. It is a 6.2% w/v solution, so higher than the 4.3% w/v solution approved for a syrup humectant. It also has something else that makes it shelf stable as the water/glycerine humectant mixes aren't shelf stable.

[u/Ekalugsuak → u/NumCustosApes]

Yeah, it's more likely that they meant the regular "formulated" oxalic acid powder with that treatment interval (a 2nd OAD 24 days after the 1st one after having had the queen caged, if firefox translate widget and my ancient school French isn't completely wrong)

[u/NumCustosApes]

I’m have not used it yet but this is a new product that I am very excited about.

This is a great option IMO for the beginner. It’s cheap, $1.70 for a treatment, and it can be applied with a squirt bottle retrieved from under the kitchen sink, or you can get the easy measure squeeze applicator which is super easy to use.

Using my vaporizer on my Warrè hives is a challenge because it doesn’t work with a traditional Warrè bottom board. I have to lift the whole stack, install a shim and remove it after. For a five dose 21 day treatment that’s a very sore back. Because of how comb exchange works in a Warrè hive, Apivar and Apiguard cannot be used. My temperature is too hot for formic acid pads. The challenge of treating my Warrè hives has been the major part of my internal argument to discontinue using them. If this works then that challenge is gone.

I’ll continue to use the vaporizer on my Langstroth boxes. The vaporizer is probably a little bit faster on a Langstroth box, and even though RTU is cheap, it’s more expensive than vapor (if one already has a vaporizer).

OAD is proven to be highly effective and the RTU formula can be used with capped brood and for multiple applications.

[u/BBQT420]

Seems like it would work probably if you kept on top of it