> 2. If trickling method is effective, why can't be spraying atop
> effective as well, without breaking the cluster? ...
Europeans have experimented with almost every imaginable treatment over
the past several decades. Some experiments have been pretty crazy and
others have been very rigourous and well conducted. From all that, the
current recommendations have been derived, after considering consistency
of results, effect on the bees and brood, and many other factors. I'm
sure spraying on top has been tried and found unsatisfactory. Why, I
can't guess. Sometimes things work in theory and not in practice.
Sometimes it is the other way around. Theory is just theory.
Granted, there are many more formulations, combinations, and techniques
that have worked, and will work, but simply achieving some degree of
mite control on one or more occcasions is, perhaps the easiest part.
The difficulty comes when some sort of reliability is expected, under
widely varying conditions, and when food and personal safety issues,
together with regulatory expectations are combined into the mix. In
temperate zones, there is often one window of opportunity for treating
each year, and failure -- partial or total -- is not an option.
> 3. I read about a German beekeeper using, a la formic pad, sort of
> the shop-towel-emersion method: soaking paper towels into alcohol and
> oxalic solution, drying the towels, and putting them inside the
> hives...
Might have worked for him, but did not work for my neighbours.
For that matter, we ghave been recently discussing fungus again, and
that we have mentioned, in passing, at least, before. Adony did some
tests, as I recall with hirsutella, with less than promising results,
for reasons recently discussed having to do with method of application
and lack of persistence. I searched, but found only this:
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S2=bee-l&q=hirsutella&0=S&s=&f=&a=&b=
allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/
Talkin' AFB again.
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