I appreciate all your comments on using EO's I wanted to know if that 
"Magic" formula was magic. We will be using the Apistan Strips since we have 
enough to treat all the hives, my friend claims it has worked in his yards 
in the past so I guess I will see just how well. Since two hives have heavy 
mites in the yard he treated last year with strips I have my doubts. I think 
we will make it through the winter fine in some of the yards because the 
bees look good, they are from packages put in new locations where there has 
not been hives in the past and they are not coming back to the infected yard 
for the winter. The mites are in the hives at his home. I will be shaking a 
bunch of them as Allen suggested to see where we stand going into the 
winter, may be it will give us an idea on who are the survivors when spring 
comes and build up from those hives.

All the honey supers are coming off today and probably Saturday, it looks 
like the weather will not hold to work on Friday. We would have no honey if 
we did not take advantage of the good fall weather. We ended up putting in 3 
acres of buckwheat in August for one yard to work because they where so 
light they never would have gone through the winter. Will start feeding with 
a Fumagiliin B mixture and we are going to use Tetra Bee. AFB has been in 
neighboring towns this summer. Always something to think/worry about.

Yesterday we moved some of our hives because someone, human, was getting 
into them stealing brood frames and honey. Swapping our frames out for other 
frames, you can tell real fast when you never use plastic and suddenly 
plastic frames show up in your brood boxes. We brand the boxes and now will 
start branding the frames or writing on them with a permanent marker. Won't 
stopped them from doing it but at least the ID is there.

Jumping from two hives to 50 more has been an adventure. I have painted, 
scraped, scorched, re-nailed, built frames until I was doing it in my sleep. 
The equipment is looking better, now the bees have to live.

Thanks,
Karen 

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