Hello Stan & All,

> This may not *always* be the case.

 This certainly might be true. I have been called in in cases which the beek
claimed fluvalinate resistance was the issue and was not the case.  In cases
of commercial migratory beeks many times the issue is not treating for mites
often enough (especially beeks doing almonds) and treating to late after
varroa loads are over threshold.

In most cases kills from varroa these days are related to not keeping a
close eye on varroa loads. In California some beeks are ( and have been for
some time) treating for mites three times a year.
I have recommended in Missouri beeks doing almonds may need to treat three
times a year *if* using soft treatments. Using formic acid ( control for
only 4 months- David Vanderduesen) & thymol especially.

had some apistan resistance starting
> and stopped using it for three years.

Going back to apistan looks promising if you compare drops from 24 hours of
apistan to thymol and formic. However a 24 hour drop of a couple hundred
mites with apistan is nothing compared to when we first used apistan. Over
2000 varroa drop was the norm for 24 hours. Going back to apistan testing I
did found a 150-200 varroa drop in 24 hours. At the time of year most might
have been normal dead dropping.

 A word of warning to Stan and others is that the formula of fluvalinate
used in apistan strips changed when resistance was reported and the new
fluvalinate is a Tau fluvalinate and has been linked to bee kills . Please
do not kill the messenger but I have had first hand reports of brood loss
etc. using the Tau fluvalinate strips.

 After high losses due to mites last
> fall > I used homemade formic pads this spring.

I see nothing wrong with homemade pads but I have heard reports of poor
results. Not sure why. I also doubt your formic was the problem. I would
suspect your hives had too high a varroa load and was the cause of the
problem. I would guess the high load was caused by a poor control the fall
before.

I am only making a few guesses Stan which may or may not be correct *but*
are based on my experience dealing with varroa issues and today's control
methods. I may not be totally on target but experience has shown many times
I am not totally off target either.

 , after two weeks the pads had almost no vapor and
> there were still some mites.

When the temps are in the low range of the recommended temps you will not
get much vapor with formic in the last week. I have found (personal
experience) that miteway 2 pads are not effective for the full 21 days and
provide the most kill in the first 7 days. I believe two treatments would
provide a better kill but David V. and I have a difference in opinion on the
subject. I do believe using formic once a year keeps tracheal mites under
control.

I do believe mitaway 2 pads are superior to some of the homemade pads (such
as baby diapers).

So I put one apistan strip in each hive to
> clean > up and had very good success.

What was the 24 hour drop with an apistan strip after your formic treatment?


> I also thought the hives jumped ahead after the pads were on MORE than
> could be explained by the mite treatment.

If you are running Italian bees and do not treat for tracheal mites I 
suspect
killing off whatever T mites were in the trachea could  be what you are
seeing. I do regular tracheal mite testing and always find mites in my
Italians but rare to find in my Russian bees.


I wondered if the formic also
> had some effect on nosema (as James Plaisted also wondered in a post
> on Nov 21).

Maybe and needs further research but nosema ceranae once gets a strong
foothold in your operation takes more than formic to eliminate. I have been
using miteaway 2 for three years on my nosema ceranae test yards and does
not seem to help with other than mites.

I should have perhaps sent to Stan direct but perhaps the above might help
other commercial beeks reading.  Stan runs a profitable operation as many
commercial beeks do but we all have the same battles with the old enemies of
honeybees. Varroa/T. mites and nosema.

Hopefully the organic group will understand both Stan & I feel we need to
control mites , nosema and other problems to stay in business.

bob

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