Date sent:              Tue, 07 Sep 1999 09:00:40 -0400
From:                   Bill Truesdell <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: FGMO
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology
        <[log in to unmask]>

> No one seems to either be using FGMO or wants to talk about it. I
> asked for input and got the one I posted about the failure of
> food grade mineral oil as a varroa controller under Dr. R's
> supervision..

I have not very actively read the postings on BEE-L lately, but if results are
needed for FGMO tests outside Dr. R's apiary I can add results of my little
experiment with only one colony. At that time, the treatment was instructed to
do by dripping the FGMO on top bars of the frames. I made during the summer
1997 a total of 15 weekly treatments according to instructions, treating every
top bar in the colony each time. The weekly mite downfall results on bottom
inserts were 38,29,33,14,25,55,56,56,102,76,61,67,124,186 and 197. Then
after this treatment program I made an oxalic acid sugar solution treatment by
trickling the solution on top of the bees and top lists. If the FGMO treatments
had worked there should have been only a few mites left, but this treatment
gave 2534 mites in 5 days. If 1 mite/day is considered to correspond to 120
mites in colony the latest weekly downfall results indicated a mite count of a
little over 3000. Obviously, a few, but only a few, of the weekly mite downfall
was caused by the treatment, but the rest of the mites died naturally.