This is a great thread thanks all. I ,like Dick, have for the last 2 years done an Apivar application in mid March after a Nov. OX dribble. I am a dinosaur who still believes that I can run a profitable small operation on honey production so am suppered from mid April through August, normal annual yield 150- 175 pounds. That means running big overwintered colonies. I start sampling early Aug to get a read of the mite load. I have seen a few zeros, most in the 8 to 12 range and a few higher. One at 68 was the most that I have found in years. I then sampled all of the colonies in that yard and nun were out of range, 2 to 4%. The colony was still queen right and large with no visible DFW and a good producer. This colony got a new queen, I keep a dozen or so baby nucs for just such situations, and 4 Apivar strips to hopefully clean it up and prevent it infesting the other yard mates. All other colonies are getting 2 Dry-Loc pads with 25ml of 65% formic each. I have found this much less harmful than MAQS due to the fact that we still get afternoon highs in the 90s and my experience with MAQS in big colonies has not been good. Last year one application of the formic pads is all I applied and had very low counts,0 to 3, 2 weeks after pulling the pads. Winter comes down like a hammer in SE Washington so any fumigant doesn't work after mid Sept. Winter loss was 3% in March up to 8% by the time I could count failed queens in April but those colonies still had good populations and were saved with nucs. I got an OX vaporizer this summer and will try a late Sept. round if I find any over 2%. No experience with the vaporizer so we will see how it goes. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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