Dear beekeepers
I found the BEE-L archives on the Internet and send you herewith the
following web site. www.members.shaw.ca/orioleln
I should not make any propaganda for this company. However, in my opinion,
their products are really the best on the marked to get rid of the mites
without bringing Chemicals in your beehives. The good Sid effect is, the
mites cannot get resistant.
I’m a beekeeper from Germany and I have bees since 1975 and found the first
Varroa in 1981, when I had 24 colonies.
I have quite a lot of information regarding the control of the Varroa Mite
using Oxalic acid, but as I'm not a native English speaker, it's difficult
for me to translate so many pages.

If you are able to read German, you can go to the this website
http://www.mellifera.de/oxneu.htm   where you will find the latest news and
test results.

I was told by a Russian beekeeper who emigrated to Germany in 1991 and
several others, that controlling the Varroa with Oxalic Acid Aerosol  is
very popular in Tajikistan and   Kazakhstan where funds and options are very
limited.

It has been my experience, working with oxalic acid since the early 90s,
that unlike Apistan and Cumaphos, there is no resistance problem. Oxalic
acid is not a chemical treatment. It works by destroying the mite's suction
ability, stopping it from feeding from the bee. Effectively, the mite
starves to death.
I have treated my bees with 2g Oxalic Acid 3 times in a row, using a
vaporizer and the air pump from my air mattress. I bought the vaporizer and
it came with all necessary instructions. I checked the drone cells during
the year and it is hard to find a mite. There is always a re infection from
beekeepers in the neighborhood so I treat my bees in the spring and fall.
It takes only 3 minutes per hive.
The Oxalic Acid Crystal should be available in paint and hardware stores,
the use it for cleaning wooden decks from mildew and rust marks.
There are companies on the internet where you can order the acid crystals.
Don’t use the liquid acid form because there is water in it and you need
the 100% pure and clean acid. http://www.chemistrystore.com/oxalic_acid.htm

Many of my colleagues here in Germany were interested in Amitraz, from
France
only to discover that the mites developed a resistance to that also.
Likewise, Gabon Strips used in Czechoslovakia.
Thymol was and idea for a treatment but nobody is using this stuff anymore
because of the bad results. With lots of luck you can catch 60% of the
mites.

Formic Acid can be difficult to work with as temperatures both inside and
outside the hive as well as calculating the correct amount, all contribute
to its effectiveness.

An error in calculation can lead to a loss of up to 25% of the queens or to
many mites left for the next season. 210 mites in the fall, followed by a
mild winter and an early breeding start in the spring, can result in approx
210,000 mites at the end of the year.

Several international beekeeping journals make mention of the Russian
mite-resistant bees. They are in high demand and the Russian know it!

If this was true, it would be the end of the mite problem but the fact is
that we have been mites in Germany since 1976 and there is no escape.
Some bee races have stronger cleaning impulses than others and that's the
reason some can live with a certain amount of mites in a colony.

All that is necessary is to take a swarm in an empty hive and treat them
twice with 3g of Oxalic Acid aerosol 7 days apart. 14 days later and the
only mites you'll find are dead ones.

My major problem is re-infection by bees from nearby hives and drones from
up to 40 km away.


All the best with your bees
Heinrich Schmitt from Mainz/Germany