> I have never met or talked to Dr. Pedro Rodrigeous, but I have been told
that
> he is a dentist, and not a scientist.

In his post to BEE-L at
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9701D&L=bee-l&P=R4648 , he
says he is/was a veterinarian.

"Then I remembered that as a veterinarian I used to treat ear mites in cats
and rabbits with nothing but mineral oil and the same thing for scale mites
on the legs of birds...".

> I know of scientists at both Beltsville and ARS who used FGMO and
> concluded that it did not work reliably or at all in some cases, and
> they discontinued their salaried research on it.

The same happened at a Canadian research facility.

> I don't believe that FGMO is an effective agent for control of
> varroa or tracheal mites.

I think that there is evidence that it works. Many, many things work.

The problem is that FGMO, as it is currently applied, has not proved to be
as consistent as alternate treatments and, in the experiments done in Spain
it appears that FGMO requires many applications using two different
methods.  For many beekeepers, this is not practical.

Fogging with oils was one of the first approaches tried by California
beekeepers when mites first appeared on the scene many years ago.  I heard
about it via the grapevine at that time and mentioned this application
method to Dr. Pedro years later when the original method of applying FGMO
he advocated -- strips of wax paper with FGMO on them -- turned out to be
cumbersome and have other drawbacks.  He has developed this method and done
some tests to try to prove its effectiveness.  His work has been better
accepted in some non-English speaking countries than in the US.

FGMO apparently works, but is in the same category in which we are now
finding formic acid for varroa treatment -- it's a substance that works,
but with unpredictable results.  The unpredictablity may be due to the
variability in hive configurations, application techniques -- and the
unpredicability of the weather and other factors.

For those who have the patience and time to work with it -- and monitor
results -- FGMO does appear to work well enough to be the sole method
required in some, if not many situations..

FWIW,

allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/