While in Tunisia N. Africa, Where Varroa had been established for some time we used several Smokem type of home remedies for Varroa control. Each was used in conjuction with a screen and a sheet of sticky paper or plastic on the bottom board. I used plastic with cooking oil. Tobacco seemed to anesthetize the mite which would drop off and stick. The plastic was removed and mites counted to determine relative numbers in that hive and then the process repeated in the next hive. It worked both as a crude sampling procedure and helped reduce the numbers. It did not get any mites under the cappings and so needed to be repeated to really help a hive. It worked ok where time was plentiful but in the US even hobbiests might find it too time consuming and certainly not as effective as Fluvalinate. Another concoction that we used, that was even more effective, was to use the same sticky trap set up using thymol, menthol and Eucalyptus leaves (Camphor) homogenized in the smoker with normal cow dung. It was quite effective at knocking down the mites. Unfortunately it was difficult to get all the ingredients (except the leaves) and if you inhaled the smoke or got it in your eyes it was very caustic. Dr. Calderone has done some preliminary work with this latter mixture but in a patty form. I hope he persues it because it is apparently quite effective. I do not know about potential contamination of hive products however. Mike > In my recent readings, I have come across some references to using > tobacco > in the smoker with the implication that the tobacco smoke kills > varroa. > Is there any validity to this? > What benefits are derived from using tobacco? > What drawbacks? > Opinions? > Mark Egloff > [log in to unmask]