MAQs Strips Or Apiguard?
This is the kind of question I ponder in my search to create the Ultimate Beekeeping Calendar. But it’s also a question I can’t find an answer to on the Internet, so I thought I would ask you guys.
If I don’t get swayed by any comments to this post I’m going for the MAQs strips.
Introduction
There are a number of interventions I am using to reduce varroa. In summary these are:
- April – Drone culling
- August – Either MAQs strips or Apiguard
- December (if it has been a cold winter, <5C for 3 weeks) – Oxalic Acid
I have written more about Varroa Management on pages highlighted at the bottom of this post. There are also links to the products I am discussing.
MAQs Strips & Apiguard – Pros & Cons
MAQs Strips
- Active ingredient: Formic acid. Formic acid is a natural component of honey and is found in the venom of ants
- How it works: Kills varroa where they breed, i.e. in the hive and in the capped brood
- Effectiveness: Reduces varroa population by 90% and also kills tracheal mites
- Application: Temperature needs to be above 10C but less than 29C, treatment takes 1 week
- When: Typically used from April – August, when have honey supers on
- Other benefits: It evaporates completely, leaves no residue in the comb
- Side effects: Randy at Scientific Beekeeping (link below) reported few side effects as compared with previous formic acid treatments. The MAQs website says “background colony health issues, such as queen frailty, may be exposed”
- Advantages: can be used with open mesh floors and without closing hive up (as required with Apiguard)
- Disadvantages: one year shelf life; don’t use if above 29C
- Cost: £6/hive
Apiguard
- Active ingredient: Thymol. Thymol is a naturally occurring substance derived from the plant thyme
- How it works: Kills varroa in the hive (but not in the capped brood)
- Effectiveness: Reduces varroa population by 93% and also kills tracheal mites
- Application: Temperature needs to be above 15C, treatment takes 4 week, requires 2 treatments. Cannot be used with honey supers you want to extract
- Timing: Typically applied from mid-August (in UK), can also be applied in spring
- Side effects: can sometimes make the queen stop egg laying for a short period; brood may be removed by the workers.
- Disadvantages: Because you need to remove any honey supers you want to extract and you cannot feed at the same time, I struggled to feed and use Apiguard at the same time (a colony starved last year). Hence, why I am considering MAQs strips
- Cost: £5/hive
Conclusions
- Both treatments are similarly effective, priced and side-effects
- Apiguard has the advantage of being applied a month later, hence, could result in a lower mite count over the winter and spring but it’s used at the same time as when I feed the bees
- I currently favour MAQs strips for the following reasons:
- No complications with feeding (as described in paragraph above)
- More efficient – it is one visit rather than the two visits required to deliver the two Apiguard doses
- More efficient – I don’t need to spend time sealing up the hive
Read More
- Postscript – Thanks for email/comments: read follow-up post Apiguard Varroa Treatment
- External: MAQs Strip Website
- External: Apiguard Website
- External: Scientific Beekeeping on Miticides (well worth a read as he has experimented with MAQs strips)
- Varroa Management How-To Guide
- Ultimate Beekeeping Calendar (this is always being improved)
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I have heard conflicting reports about MAQs. Some beekeepers have reported loss of brood, because the formic acid will permeate through the brood cell cappings. Also that it will eat any metal work inside the hive and even kill grass in front of the hive!
For me it’s advantage over Apiguard is that it can be used safely whilst the bees are storing honey. However as all our honey producing colonies have an extremely low varroa drop at the moment we’re going to use Apiguard as usual in August.
Thanks Emily – How’s the honey flow going for you? When are you planning to take off the supers?
It’s been a good year for us – for a start it looks likely we’ll actually get some honey this year! Possibly three or four supers.
Excellent. And when are you planning to remove supers? And then will you add Apiguard immediately or feed them first? Very interested. Wondering about removing supers early so that bees put nectar into the brood box.
We’re planning to harvest the honey the second weekend of August, as that is a time we’re both free.
Luckily all our hives have stored plenty of honey in the brood boxes already, we don’t have wall-to-wall brood. If they hadn’t done so, we would either leave them some honey in the supers or feed.
We’ll probably start Apiguard the 3rd weekend of August as it’s most effective in warm temps.
I’ve not experienced the same problem with bees not taking feed when the Apiguard is on, though I use fondant rather than syrup or Ambrosia. I simply open a 12.5kg block in half, lay it on the crownboard using an empty super as an eke, tuck the tray of Apiguard to one side and leave them to it. Sometimes the queen does stop laying, so I use it as early as practical so she can generate some winter bees afterwards. I failed to keep a record of which queens stopped laying last year, so can’t check if the same ones behave the same way again. I have wondered whether it’s an inherited characteristic.
I used Apiguard in my early years, but the pain of applying a second dose coupled with only being able to treat after harvesting meant that there was a narrow window of opportunity, and predicting 4 good weeks in August/September in the UK is like trying to guess what Donald Trump will do next: nobody knows.
MAQS however, is a different kettle of fish. You have to remmember that the formula was changed to suit the smaller UK hives and since then, problems have melted away. 7 days total treatment time and it kills mites in the sealed cells. What’s not to like.
I have two hives and decided to use Apiguard this year. One hive was fine but the other reacted badly as some were overpowered by the Apiguard and hung around outside the hive until they died. This happened for a few days after each treatment so will use MAQS next year