>A question, Did you have a control treatment to determine how many mites left in after your oxalic treatment?

Not at this point, although I have been considering applying Apivar for that purpose.  The problem is the lateness  of the season and the disruption to the colonies which are four stories high and heavy.  

I suppose it all comes down to how serious I want to be and whether I (and others who are interested) would be happy enough to look at winter survival and spring counts.  Are the observations so far valid enough to warrant continuing?

> In most experiments run  to determine efficacy, we use what is called a finishing treatment. This treatment is done using a miticide with efficacy more than 95% such Apivar for 42 days. After collecting all mites during the 42 days. This will represent what is left after the initial treatment (e.g. oxalic acid). Thus, we will be able to get a relative efficacy to known product.

In this case, my attempts at reducing what I considered to be excessive varroa levels to tolerable numbers has turned into something moire serious and interesting than I originally intended.  I am willing to take suggestions like this, if the benefit in terms of proving something that is  not already known or which cannot be inferred is greater than the cost to me and  my bees in terms of disruption and probable consequent hive death in winter.  There is also the  question of whether I want to count mites for another 42 days after I finish this measurement in the next two weeks.  Of course, I would not have to count daily in that finishing drop.  bi-weekly would probably suffice. 

And would I be annoyed if the finishing treatment dropped a total of fifty mites or less in the six hives over 42 days after I was already  convinced  that I had high efficicacy?  (Yes).

>Generalizations and assumption have to be handled carefully!

So it seems.  

It also seems that the problem is often in recognizing that the assumptions are assumptions.

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