>
>
>
> My question is this: why would someone go to this much trouble, when MAQs
> seem to be much easier and safer? Is the cost difference very great? Or do
> you get better efficacy? Or?
>

From my limited experience - both.

MAQS is very temp. sensitive. I've had brood kill, queen loss, and more
often than not and at the least the queen will stop laying for a week or so
after treatment. I've also had, as recent as this summer, hives collapse
from mites a month after treatment (on 3 hives I know of). I do a random
mite sampling pre and post treatment of the whole  yard, so I don't know
what the efficacy was of those hives that crashed after MAQS treatment.
Home brew formic allows you to dial up or dial down the concentration to
match the temperature or the colony size. Gives me a better efficacy as a
result.

As far as cost goes, MAQS is about $4.40 per treatment. My homebrew ends up
costing me ~$1.80 per treatment. That's with me buying formic and HBH in
low quantities at higher prices. If I bought in bulk I could get it down to
$0.65 per treatment. If I cut out the HBH as part of the treatment (which I
don't think I would, but just saying) I could get it down to ~$0.23 per
treatment.

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