Aaron Morris wrote:

> Grease patties all year is no longer recommended by the researcher
> credited with the original work, Diana Sammataro.  Diana spoke at them
> summer seminar hosted by the Southern Adirondack Beekeepers Association and I
> questioned her at length about her work.  Subsequent studies showed that
> grease patties can be used in fall/winter (when the bees are confined and
> clustered) to keep t-mites sufficiently in check.

This is very encouraging news.  In the past I had attempted to keep grease patties
in the colony all year, but found that summer temperatures were too high for the
patties to hold together very well.  So I abandoned any try at suumer treatments,
and hoped for the best.  As it turned out, bees wintered very well indeed with a
fall patty placement, and I didn't notice any problems at all during the subsequent
spring and summer.

By the way, I just removed my coumaphos strips yesterday after 45 days in the
hives.  Every colony (76) looks good - some are still completely packed with bees
now on November 5!  It is surely different from about 5 years ago, when varroa
first hit my hives and 40% were dead by the middle of October.

Ted Fischer
Dexter, Michigan USA