> I have need to talk to someone regarding Apistan drop tests, please.         >
If you have performed any drop tests at the end of the season,
> preferably on hives with no other alternative summer treatments, I
> would be delighted to hear from you, on or off the list.

We have done exactly that, and on a fairly large scale.  We sampled a random 10%
of 800 hives with Apistan (R) in July and found nothing.

Later, in September, natural drop tests showed only one mite in 40 colonies 100%
tested for three days.  Subsequent Apistan 24 hour drop tests tests in that same
one yard -- sampled 100% -- dropped the numbers shown in our recent post
available at http://listserv.albany.edu/archives/bee-l.html  Subsequent trials
in the same yard with formic gave one mite.  We were advised that the levels
were too low to justify treatment, but we thought that this could be the tip of
an iceberg, and soon we found more mites in other yards, using 24 hour Apistan
drops.

Since then, we have put two strips of Apistan in all our hives as quickly as we
can (we're half done) and put sticky boards into 3 hives chosen at random in
each yard.  Drops vary from zero and one in most cases to the 2,000+, 160 and
400 we got in one yard so far.

Random hive examinations show that there is no sealed brood in most hives in the
bad yard mentioned above, so this expalins the large number of mites hit, and
because they are almost all phoretic, we expect that we should hit virtually all
the mites in this yard this round.

We also threw in 30 ml of formic when installing Apistan(r) as a backup, and to
hit any TM.  Formic gets the mites that might be Apistan(R) resistant, as well.
At this time of year formic pads should be very effective, since most mites are
phoretic except in weaker hives that are still catching up.

Please feel free to contact me directly or through the list if you think my
results and research can be of any assistance.

allen
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