My very unscientific trial of essential oils (oregano, spearmint, and
lemongrass) was a bust with three out of four colonies dead. The survivor
was a Mike Palmer Varroa resistant queen, so it had a leg up on the
carniolans.

I was asked to speak to a local beekeeper group and took a rough appraisal
of losses over the past winter (mortality has been high in Maine this winter
with many loosing all their colonies). Those who treated with formic acid
and fumidil lost no colonies. Many who treated with apiguard or other thymol
based treatments, like my essential oils, lost all or nearly all their
colonies. One who treated with formic lost a colony, but they did not use
fumidil.

The treatment championed by Medhat in Canada works in Maine also - formic
and fumidil.. Just about everything else did not.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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