Being new to the list I am learning a great deal and grateful to all. I feel a bit like a mouse at the elephant's ball. As a qualifier I am a guy with a high school education trying hard to keep my small operation going but I've been at it for over 30 yrs. and take it seriously. As per Randy's suggestion I sampled at 16 & 17 days. Here are the results. I'll do it again at day 32.

Pretreat 23 mites, On removal day 9 no test, day 17 22 mites
P- 32, D9- 9,  D17- 9
P-10,  D8-20, D16-14
P-12,  D8-4,   D16-19

So some variation but not a lot of change from removal to day 16-17 and all indicate very poor efficacy. Clearly a lot of mites survived the treatment. By crude extension I get a 5% infestation of phoretic mites (15 in 300 bee sample) to 1,200 per colony times 3 in capped brood 3,600 total load. A colony that will not survive the winter. They have not had time to go through a new brood cycle so these mites must be 1, mothers that survived in brood, 2 fertile daughters that emerged during and post treatment, or 3 sterile daughters (far fetched to me but claimed by NOD) Are there any mite biologist out there that can speak to whether or not a sterile female would enter a cell as normal? I'm looking forward to hearing how Randy's application goes. I believe we are in similar climates.

Paul Hosticka 
Dayton WA 

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