Allen asks: Has anyone direct experience in these matters, and care to comment? The Russian bee is difficult to introduce. The bees which were shipped with my queen order did not want to feed the queens in the cages. The bees in the hives did not want to feed the queens either while caged. I suspect the Russian queens have got different pheromones. Both of the above problems could easily be over looked by many beekeepers and result in failure. My Russian queens came in a battery pack (large box with queens caged without attendants and bees shook on top of the cages) and perhaps the bees shook in the box were not pure Russian. I doubt a hobby beekeeper buying a Russian queen with attendants in the cage would not get Russian attendants as the attendants are pulled usually the same time and from the same nuc as the queen is caged from. When I realized the bees in my battery box were not feeding my queens I went to a hive and replaced all the bees in the battery box with young nurse bees. Did not solve the problem. The nurse bees I added were not Russian. I hand fed each queen until installed by putting honey and water on the cage screen daily. I have a hard time telling the Russian worker from a carniolan worker but the Russian queens look very different than carniolan queens. I have only had the Russian queens since April so really need to wait a couple years to evaluate before commenting. About the only problem I have seen so far I do not like is the Russians use propolis more than I like. We were in a severe drought this year and had about half a normal honey crop so hard to evaluate honey production on the Russians. * About testing I had planned on doing this fall on sucrose octanoate & Apilife Var and had talked about on BEE-L:* My testing of sucrose octanoate and Apilife Var was not done correctly timing wise for me to evaluate like a researcher would so all I can say is I used both and they seemed to control varroa. The exact percentages of control will not be available. I do plan to try again to conduct accurate testing next spring. I wrote my friends at Dadant and explained why I was unable to evaluate their product correctly. Timing is important and when timing gets out of line many times the treatment will still work but the results in my opinion are flawed. I did come up with a different method of using the sucrose octanoate than removing every frame and spraying but with out proper testing and proper timing I can not say the alternate method is the way to go . I had hoped to be able to say for sure but sadly I can not so those trying the sucrose octanoate from Dadant next spring need to remove every frame until I can verify my idea works through testing. Another beekeeper is using the method but not sure if he is testing both methods or simply using the new way. I will see the beekeeper at our state meeting next week and maybe find out. About all I can say about Apilife Var (thymol registered under section 18 in Missouri on Aug. 28th.) is that the product crumbles easily. Stinks and burns the eyes if kept in the cab of the truck. Strong hives removed the product by the time of the next treatment and weaker hives tried to propolis around the product. Never did the product run the bees from the hive. Twice pices of the thymol tablet ended up in a gallon feeder of syrup. I found the piece when I refilled the feeder as the tablet floated to the top. The bees seemed unaffected. At this point about all I can do to tell if the above products worked is to put in a 98% control strip in for 24 hours with a sticky board and count the dead varroa. I have still got around nine days to go before I can do final testing on several yards. I will know in my own mind if they worked but will have to guess as to percent of control which is not what I had intended on doing. I had planned on giving the list valid testing as done by bee labs. Sincerely, Bob Harrison :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::