> What I want to know is:

I don't know what to tell you Pete?

>Does ApiLife Var work?

Of course it works but like *all* thymol concoctions applied in the hive it
has obvious issues ( at least to me) . Which are concerns with temperatures
during applications and varroa threshold at time of application. Thymol
works to slow when thresholds are too high. Apistan on the other hand when
first released could turn a sticky board red  with *dead* varroa over night.


 >If not, why not? What could be changed to make it work?

Both products work. The key to assessing varroa kill for those not wanting
to *test before treatment* ( highly recommended)  is seeing a small amount
of brood kill. In my opinion a thymol or formic acid treatment strong enough
to run in the 90% range will display some larva kill in the first three
days.

Randy Oliver wrote about this in one of his articles and suggested dropping
the dose from two fifty ml treatments to three 25 ml treatments to avoid
this issue concerning apiguard. Max Watkins said he would see *if* the label
needed changing. We never heard again. I suspect his researchers said the
small amount of kill needed to be to maintain the highest efficacy and
*also* ( more importantly) that the phony little plastic shovels provided
were actually giving a 60 ml dose instead of the recommended 50 ml dose.

In other words with apiguard the instructions say the bucket contains 60 50
ml doses *but* if you carefully fill the provided scoop to the top and level
you only end up with 50 + doses. I know as I did so after commercial
beekeepers complained the tub only contained 50 doses instead of 60.

Some beekeepers only were able to get around 45+ doses from a tub as they
did not carefully level the scoop.

Over dosing with apiguard in hot weather kills brood!

Randy and I came up with a more accurate method in our opinions ( picture of
a 25 ml dose on a hive tool in one of his articles)by measuring 25 ml and
then seeing the amount 25 ml looks like on the end of a hive tool. Double
the amount and you are looking at a 50 ml dose.

For those still not convinced use a 60 ml bull syringe filled to either 25
ml or 50 ml.

Max( rep for maker of apiguard) if you are reading please comment?
Loose the phony plastic scoops like I recommended two years ago!

bob

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