>Beekeeping has been subjected to many seductive-looking but ineffective treatments that were each shown by multiple legit controlled studies to be no more effective than doing nothing, and fared no  better than untreated control colonies.

This is absolutely true but has no relevance to our discussion of OAE. There have been multiple controlled trials. I myself started OAE on only 8 colonys distributed among 3 yards and closely monitored mite counts throughout the season. Not pear reviewed nor published, but posted here. The results were dramatic and led me to expand the treatment to all my colonys in the fallowing 2 years. Varroa is not above a nuisance for me now. Randy's trials met a high degree of scientific rigor. Hundreds of thousands of colonys have been treated subsequently. Empirical evidence once it has  passed an unquestioned threshold has meaning. I would suggest to those that have questions about efficacy and are concerned with keeping healthy colonys to try it, if on only a single colony, before making speculative declarations based on opinion.

By the way I did try powdered sugar, FGMO, spearmint oil, even cinnamon after hearing others say it worked. It did not work for me so I abandoned it. OAE works for me.

Paul      

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