Back from our Annual Meeting and got the latest report on OAV treatments by
a commercial operator. It was an update from what he did last year. He has
a split method to go broodless and treats then and gets excellent results
with one treatment.

But the interesting aspect was that he had to treat some colonies brought
in that had high Varroa loads and treated them immediately. His time and
duration was 5 times four days apart. He felt that a reduced duration was
necessary to get most all the mites. But even after that, additional later
treatments were necessary for those hives.Not sure what when and how since
he did not elaborate.

He also had the same result as I did with a hive that was ripe with PMS and
BPV. It came out of it nicely after the OAV treatments last fall and is
thriving today.

After his spring broodless treatments he had low varroa counts for most of
the year and treats with MAQS at the end of the year.

My results so far are low varroa counts after each OA treatment but I treat
more than most. So they all were treated 3x5 late last fall (talked about
that in depth), once in early spring,. 2x7 in mid August, and will be doing
a 3x5 in a week, then one in November.

The most mites I have seen from a mite drop after treatment is six but
mostly zero to two.

My conclusion with OA is that a hobby beekeeper like me can achieve great
control with OA even with brood present since they are not constrained by
labor cost or time, as you can see from my multiple treatments. But those
with larger operations need to go broodless with OA which is what the
commercial operator does. He can afford to rescue colonies during the year
with multiple treatments of OA, but still reverts to MAQS becasue of the
ease of use compared to OAV with brood present.He uses OA to rescue
colonies because of the minimal impact of OAV on the colony compared to
MAQS.

Also that commercial operations, when the colony is not broodless, need to
go to 5x4 instead of 3x5 or 4x5. The reason is that they are going to have
more variation in mite loads for a variety of reasons. It may be a bit of
overkill, but it is effective for whatever ails the colony.

It seems that,t just like beekeeping, all OAV is local too.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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