I followed this thread with great interest but was still pulling honey and could not start my fall treatment until 8/17. I am trying OAV for the first time this fall (been a mite wipe formic advocate for years) so am running a trial on 1 colony in each of 4 yards.

Background ; All got 2 Apivar strips in early spring and each of the 4 were 0 mites on 6/2 or 6/5. These are big colonies ! Doubles that all produced 180 to 210 pounds take-off and 60 to 75 pounds left on and building for winter stores, no feeding. I have a generator on the truck to run the blower to clean the stragglers out of honey supers so I went with a 120V wand and am very happy with it. Could easily run 4 at a time if this works out. All treatments were 2 gr for 2 1/2  minutes and seemed to sublimate as advertised. I drape a cloth over the entrance and for a minute after pulling and reloading so little vapor escapes.I have treated all colonies in each yard but only monitored 1.

I have done 4 treatments on 1 and 3 on 1. The other 2 have only had their first so no good data.

Colony 1.  8/17 14 mites (5%-) pretreatment. Estimate 20 frames of bees, just got crammed down from 4 high. Still active brood rearing. Treatments 8/17, 8/22, and 9/7. I missed my 5 day on this one I know. Before the 9/7 dose mite count was up to 53 (18% !) Could be invasion but I doubt it due to the isolation of the yard and still lots of brood emerging. Can't say but will continue to monitor it with additional 5 day treatments.

Colony 2. 8/7 11 mites (3%-) pretreatment. Same size and condition but different yard. Treatments 8/9, 8/17, 8/21, On 9/7 mite count was 5 (2%-). Above my fall threshold of >1% so started another round 9/7 and will be more diligent with the 5 day schedule.

My questions. Given the extra large population would it be wise to increase the dose to 3 gr or more, or would it make no difference? Does missing a couple of days make as big a difference as it seems given emerging brood. I suppose allowing re-entry on days more than 5 could be a bigger factor then I thought.

Suffering mightily with dense smoke and sweltering heat in SE WA.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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