Randy, >>Ellis and Alianos experiments put the nail into the coffin of the acidic haemolymph hypothesis. I'll send you a copy of my article. No one knows the action. You've done a nice job on the article! I am open to all hypotheses and I am sure one day soon we'll learn the precise mode of operation. Re. possible ingestion, I'd think bees have to clean the syrup solution off themselves. It's hard for me to imagine that mere rubbing against other bees would satisfy the bees. They would use their probosis to ingest [temporarily?] the syrup. I am not sure if OA sugar syrup is so unpleasant to them that they would not do it at all but I have seen whitish looking syrup deposited in certain areas of the comb immediately after treatment and not eaten/removed up from those cells for weeks afterwards [were they waiting for the OA concentration to naturally drop before using this syrup?]... Was it the OA syrup? I did not want to taste it and did not have other means to analyze it. Re. blood pH, I wonder if it would be easy enough to measure the pH before and after OA treatment... Some folks have very interesting research to carry out indeed. :) Waldemar Long Island, NY -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---