As a follow-on, in my travels for the truth on OAV, there seem to be
contradictions in application methods. One of the most intriguing is the
treatments early in the morning or late in the evening when all the bees
are present as opposed to any time in the day.

You can only find the early treatments mentioned in one or two sources, but
they seem to be the method of choice for some including where I got it, a
commercial beekeeper. So I have been doing the early am treatments, and it
is no big deal because of my reasonable number of colonies and I get
through before they start to fly.

I think the practice does little and may actually not be as efficient as
heat of the day applications even though it does the job.

First- I did all my first treatments during the day and the bees did
exceptionally well for the state the the hives were in.

Second- if you want the OA to coat as much as possible, including bees, you
want a more open cluster, one of the selling points of fanned OAV
dispensers. So on a warm day, the bees are not clustered, more open to be
covered, and you are only missing the bees that happen to be out at that
time. You get the most important bees that need to contact the OA which are
the nurse bees and other hive bound bees and the bonus field bees still
around. So you cover more bees and surfaces because of the openness.

Third- it is safer for the beekeeper, If you saw as I did, the commercial
operation in the early am haze, it looked like a battlefield since the haze
was OA vapor! In the early am there is usually little wind so the OA vapor
hangs around and not disbursed like later in the more breezy day.

So I am shifting back to my days of ignorance that worked and treat in the
heat of the day.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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