Bob asked if thymol is effective against tracheal mites (acarine). When I started beekeeping (1981) I used to worry about acarine (and everything else connected with the health of my bees!) and regularly dissected bees with symptoms, or from colonies that died in the winter. I used Folbex (now no longer available) to try to 'save' infested colonies. I also used Fumidil regularly against nosema. After a few years of this, I realised that I was on a treadmill and decided to allow susceptible colonies to die and to breed from those that survived. The problems rapidly disappeared and I have not bothered to look for either acarine or nosema for many years. I am hoping that by using thymol to keep varroa to sub-lethal levels I will achieve the same happy situation with them in due course! I would expect thymol to be effective against acarine, but without an acarine problem I would be unable to conduct any meaningful tests. I would have thought that the US would have been a better testing ground. Co-incidentally, I re-read Manley's 'Honey Farming' on my recent holiday. Writing in 1944, he wrote: 'There is no doubt whatever that there are strains of bees that will not survive long in this country, but which become infested with acari very quickly. These strains, at least those that have come my way, are all imported from the United States. Acarine disease is unknown in the New World, so far as I know, and this probably accounts for the bees from there being very susceptible to acarine infestation. This does not apply to European bees which are all survivors of acarine attacks at some time or other, I expect, and French and Italian bees are just as liable to carry the mites as are British. I think it probable that were mites to get into the apiaries of North America, there would be a holocaust that would put our past experience into the shade entirely.' Peter Edwards [log in to unmask] www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::