One problem I see when OAV is discussed is mite count. Since the main
methods are alcohol wash and the other is sticky boards, the counts are
different by a large factor. But most fail to differentiate.

Take alcohol wash- if the count is one mite in 300 bees, that is abut the
same as an OAV sticky board count 24 hours after treatment of 100 mites in
an arbitrary population of 30,000 bees (small but it makes the math easy).
Most colonies are much larger. So you can have a sticky board mite count of
400 or 500 before you would normally consider treating since that would be
the same as an alcohol wash of 4 or 5 mites (again in the 30k hive). In a
60k hive the mite counts would be 800 to 1000 and still be in the low range
of trouble from an alcohol wash.

What brought this home to me was that many who shifted to OAV saw these
high mite counts from sticky boards and panicked. I know I was in emergency
mode when I first saw the high mite counts in the fall. It did not dawn on
me that an alcohol wash would have reassured me rather than panicked me.

So now, if someone who treats with OAV in September or October has sticky
board counts of less than 600 or so after treatment, I suggest they wait
until Thanksgiving to treat, since then they will get most all the
mites.Plus, they did an OAV treatment to get the mite drop, so they are
already ahead of the game. BTW, all who treat use the wand, not foggers.

So don't worry.

I was concerned that I might not be getting an accurate count with my
sticky boards so I asked the State Inspector to come and inspect my hives.
Her alcohol washes led to no mites in one hive and a questionable one in
another, which were confirmation of my counts.a month earlier. My most
recent treatment yielded near zero in one hive and about 20 in another.

I only do OAV with the wand and have had zero winter kill for OAV treated
hives for two years (when I started). .

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html