“Europeans have experimented with almost every imaginable treatment over
the past several decades.  Some experiments have been pretty crazy and
others have been very rigorous and well conducted.”

I have no doubt about beekeepers’ tinkering with myriad variations,
indeed.  My original question arose from the lack of comparative study
done on spraying *with* sugar-syrup, not without.  Although the
researchers cannot pinpoint why, they found out oxalic acid mixed with 1 x
1 sugar syrup, in trickling method in particular, worked better than
without the syrup.  The original spraying method did *not* use any syrup
at all.  OA, this is strictly my guess, sticks well with syrup, especially
given the hairy topology of a bee, coated, probably, with a waxy water-
repellent.

Of course, the original spraying method was to be done during the
broodless period, frame by frame, with OA alone (30% solution which is
slightly weaker than the solution used in trickling).  What I did to my
sick colonies, finally, was to spray the 30% OA, mixed in *syrup*, top and
bottom, lifting supers up, shooting between the frames, bottom up, aiming
at the clusters, now that brood-rearing is minimal, yet not wanting to do
frame by frame (too time-consuming).  My rationale for opting this
particular procedure was too folded: direct mite kill at contact and
residual kills caused by both lingering OA particles as well as by bees,
imbibing the syrup, hence causing another eventual mite death.

I could tell the spraying caused undue stress to the bees: they calm down
immediately.  (For those who love to spray water in lieu of lighting a
smoker might want to consider spraying OA concoction to double the benefit
*granted you take extreme caution against the caustic acid* with mask and
acid-proof gloves and goggles)  In warm evenings, they linger outside the
box although they did not form a “beard.”  It took two flight days for
them to settle back down to normalcy.  The death-rate was minimal,
however.  In three flight days, my revived bees showed more vigor and
vitality than before.  (After work, I daily observe my bees between 2:00
to 3:00)  Again I could have opted for fumigation method, but I just did
not have any clue about its efficacy and right dosage on screened bottoms
(and I assume the dosage could be higher and like Dennis, I am thinking
about shooting from the top, utilizing the downdraft created by bees).
Except for a few dinks, those splits yet untouched by mites, all my bees
are stalwart and the fall flow is going strong.  Our temp still nears at
80’s though at dawn and dusk the temp dips around 55 F.  The overall
impact, I must confess, is still inconclusive: only time will tell.  But
for now they are alive, and that’s a good start.


Yoon

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