>Me: I meant, what are you using now that works better than thymol.

Formic acid works good in the spring but hard to use in August in hot
weather but I have had good control by pulling pads when temps climb above
90F. Working in a formic treatment helps with tracheal mites.

With both thymol & formic if you start treatment early enough you can extend
treatment periods to make up for poor weather ( which in my opinion should
be information on the information sheets)

example:
if dosing 25 ml with apiguard do a 4th treatment which extends the treatment
time 7-10 days and still allows the same amount of product as the label two
50 ml dose .

With formic you can extend the treatment period to include a third pad which
I have done with good results but really does not comply with the label but
I have seen no problems with the bees ( and in Canada Allen used four
treatments for tracheal mites without problems).
Maybe Medhat will comment but my *guess* Medhat would not see a problem with
restarting a new treatment period *if* the first was interrupted ( pad 
pulled
within the first 7 days due to high temps).

Tip:
When using thymol or formic a late fall oxalic acid treatment can be the key
to success.

When api life var was first registered the dose was two treatments which did 
not produce the best results. The next year each dose was reduced and three 
treatments went to.

I was told one goal of the apiguard research team was to come up with a 2 
treatment thymol instead of a three applications to catch the eye of 
commercial beekeepers.

in my opinion three thymol treatments work better than two *and* in Europe 
my friends typically use four with homemade thymol concoctions or when using 
crystals alone ( didn't know crystals alone will work?).

bob

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