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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:03:48 -0500
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>Efficacy with formic as always been all over the scale. The reason never
>fully understood ( at least by me).

My understanding is that it is the nature of fumigants.  Jerry has done work
illustrating how bees can manipulate the airflow in hives.  Additionally, the 
ambient conditions have an unpredictable influence.  Temperature, humidity, 
wind, rain, snow, and sunshine on lids can affect release rates and 
distribution of the fumes in the hive.  

The state of flows or lack of flows will influence the distribution of bees of 
various ages throughout the hive and therefore also the varroa, which 
prefer younger bees.

If the bees have been on a flow, they are more active.  If they have been off
the flow for a while and settled down, they may cluster.  The amount of feed 
in the hive and whether it is capped or not will influence the distribution also
as will the spacing of individual combs and the amount of brood and the 
stages of brood.

Contact miticides are more reliable as long as the bees circulate in the hive, 
but they can have problems if the bees are not active, too.

>Back then Allen & I discussed the issue at length ( in archives). If I
>remember correctly Allen only used formic on meat pads for tracheal mites. I
>used menthol for tracheal . My menthol treatment was approved in U.S.,worked
>and the cost was about fifty cents a hive with two treatments when Allen's
>formic was *if I remember correctly four treatments* and similar in cost per
>hive.

Correct, but I also used menthol for tracheal.  At that time, it was said that
the meat pad treatment need to be repeated 5 times for varroa control.  
It is still IMO, the best formic application because the weather can be predicted
for one or two days ahead, usually and that is the release period for the 
Dri-loc 50 pads with 40 ml each.

>My experiments with mitegone & miteaway 2 never produced the results
>concerning varroa control *I hoped for*.

You are not alone in that respect and no amount of tinkering will make them 
as reliable as a contact miticide.  Unfortunately, we are running out of contact 
miticides and these sorts of treatments may become more and more the only 
controls available.  Maybe not.

> I do believe from my research and listening from German beekeepers that 
> a placement of strong smelling and at times brood killing formic directly *in*
> the brood nest might not be worth the possible killing of varroa in cells.

Yes.  It was claimed by some that it was possible to kill mites and not brood, 
but common sense would make most of us think otherwise.

>Formic fumes disrupt pheromones and the hive and need to be used carefully.

That aspect is not well understood, but once again we come back to the 
warning: Don't treat unless the benefit from treating outweighs the harm it 
does, and all treatments do harm.

>I had hoped to get some formic strips to test by now but *from my
>experience* I believe the independent study is correct.

I am sure they will work, but not have any advantage, other than, possibly 
handling, over treatments you can make yourself with simple materials.

>Being able to advertise a formic treatment with one application and no need
>to remove the product which kills varroa in cells ( 95% efficacy) is a
>beekeepers dream ( and you know what they say about if it sounds to good to
>be true!}

We have been using single treatment Dri-loc 50 treatments here in Canada
continuously for many years now.

Is it a dream?  Not really, but it works, is cheap, get the tracheal mites (that 
we don't have because we don't check) and can knock back the phoretic varroa 
by 2/3rds in one treatment done at the right time in the right way.  Are we 
killing mites in brood?  I'm sure we are because we do kill some brood.  Not
always, but in treating 5,000 hives or so, the conditions vary a bit during 
the time it takes to get around, and not all hives have the same amount of 
brood in the same location.

>Still I will try and try some strips to see for myself.

I don't see the point, personally.  It is not too hard to predict how they will 
work, and their limitations.  I suspect they will be better than Miteaway II, 
but for many that is not saying much.  For others, it is going to be a good 
solution when used with understanding.  

>With what I know I would never treat all my hives with this product until
>positive will not make the hives go backward.

It could, if used at the wrong time or in the wrong way.  We have seen
that already. 

Medhat was very involved in developing the previous long-duration treatment 
and after promoting it (you may recall reading details on BEE-L in the '90s), he 
became less enamoured with it as the results piled up and other methods, 
especially flash methods, proved better due to the ability to apply them in 
a defined weather window.  Nod went on to try to tune the release from the 
long-term method, and some claimed success at times, but others had serious 
failures, undoubtedly due to weather.

Formic treatments have been suspected of damaging bees and brood from
the start, but nobody has been able to pin it down.  Some tests showed
serious reductions in crop and populations, others did not.  That is understandable.  

These methods are a crap shoot and users have to have a plan B.  I don't know 
what plan B would be, though, if the treatment happened to do serious damage
to the brood and bees.  

Sometimes there is time to recover and sometimes there isn't.

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