>  Watch your temperatures... Add an extra super... Make sure that you have
>  your entrances wide open... The answer to my question about supercedure...
<etc.>

It sounds to me as if this is a method that depends a lot on many undefined
things like the type of lids used, the entrance size, the density of the bees
in the hive, flow conditions, weather changes, and maybe other less obvious
or predictable things.  It is going to affect your management, too.

I don't recall what your measured levels are, and how serious your problem
is, but there can be issues with using formic in spring. Some have success,
some lose queens, brood, and some even lose their crop or part of it.

MAQS have been tested a number of times and at different places, and the
reports I have heard are all over the map, from delight to disappointment.
The manufacturer promoted the previous product as being the solution in cartoon
advertisements, then withdrew it suddenly from the market and it is no longer
available.  Makes a person wonder.

The Miteaway II pads were widely tried in Canada, but only a few beekeepers
ever found them to live up to the advertising and many had various
difficulties with the system and the results.

In Canada, many beekeepers use meat pads soaked in formic as a tool in their
arsenal against mites, but use it judiciously and at chosen times, and almost
never as the principal varroa control.  Formic is used to knock back varroa at
times, but is employed as a preventative against potential tracheal as much
as a varroa control.

One method that apparently works and has no adverse reports that I have heard
is Mitegone.  Bill claims it is legal in the USA, but I really have no
idea what is permissible in any particular jurisdiction and what is not.

There are other options, too, especially for small operators, and as much as I
do not like the idea of drone trapping, it does have some advocates and may
be a way to get through to the fall.  Sugar dusting apparently works, too.

Personally, I like oxalic acid and it's use has been described here by a
beekeeper who has used it with success in the southern US, drizzling several
times on the same hives without obvious issues.  I used the vapour five
times on my wintering bees last winter and currently have hives with brood in
four boxes and bees flying from the floor. See
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/images/2012/DSCF9072.JPG  for an example.

OA drizzling is dirt cheap, easy, takes only moments to do and and leaves no
trace of any sort in the hive an hour later.  OA does drop lots of mites,
but has to be repeated in hives that have brood, as any in the brood are not
affected.

Anyhow, if I were thinking of using MAQS, I would try them on a few hives
first and watch carefully.  They may be the solution in your situation, but
they may have side effects that are undesirable in your operation.

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