<<<<<<At a recent lecture, the lecturer said that he is experimenting with
using
Oil of Wintergreen for treating Acarine. He has just started the treatment
and is going to re charge the absorbent
material every month or so.  Has anybody any experience of the above
treatment please?>>>>>>
Tom et alia,
Regret no experience of it as I do not consider acarinet important enough 
to require treatment.  Back in the fifties and sixties, when it was more in
the public eye, I did routine dissections.  I had no losses attributable to
acarine and I found mites in thriving colonies.  Since then I have given up
looking.   A healthy stock will rid itself of it naturally.  If it can't
it's not worth keeping anyway.  According to Bailey, UK,  Honeybee
Pathology, there are no outward signs of the disease and only dissection of
the prothoracic tracheae will determine whether it is there or not.  
Infestation does shorten the bees'  life but he considers that acarine is 
often blamed unfairly for colony loss just because it is found present.  
Morse, USA, Honeybee Pests and Diseases, writing in 1978 before it was
found in the Unitec States, agreed with Bailey.  Quote. "  I am inclined to
support Bailey's view that acarine disease might not be so serious as has 
been supposed; it appears that, much as sacbrood and EFB, the disease it
more likely to manifest itself and become a problem when a colony is under
stress."  Six years later the mite was detected in Texas and then spread
throughout North America.
Oil of wintergreen, nowadays synthetic methyl salicylate, is an old remedy,
dating back to before the war.  There are conflicting views as to its use.  
Baily states that it is toxic to open brood and should only be applied when
no brood is present, i.e. in the winter. It is the fumes from the
evaporation which kill the mites.  Unfortunately it will not evaporate fast
enough if the weather is too cold.  Manley, a successful commercial
beekeeper, in his book Honey Farming, written in 1946, states that it is
not harmful to brood and he keeps a small container of it in his mating
nuclei all the year round.  You can't get two opinions more opposed than
that.  Wedmore, in his Manual of Beekeeping, 1946, suggests two to four
small flat tins, with perforated lids, each containing half an ounce of
salicylate in cotton wool, on the floorboard placed in November and renewed
in the spring.so he agrees with Manley.  He, Manley, suggests small shoe
polish type tins, with several large holes in the lid, containing cotton
wool and one ounce of salicylate.  He found this rather ineffective in cold
weather and preferred a small bottle, standing up at the back on the
floorboard, with a wick.        Have fun.               Sid P.