To elaborate- I fed Randy's essential oil formula in April/May and August/Sept of 2010. I fed for 21+ days to cover the brood cycle. Also, I fed the lemongrass and spearmint in spring but not in late summer because of problems I noted in spring. The added odors did disrupt the colony as I had swarming problems. The pheromone issues with essential oils definitely came into play in spring. The only monkey wrench in the trial is that I have a non-treating beekeeper about 600 yards away so I could have had robbing and a re-infestation of Varroa after the treatment. All four colonies were strong with good supplies of honey going into winter. One was three deeps. I will be tearing the dead outs apart in the next week so will have a better idea of what did them in. What was nice is that Mike's Varroa resistant queen/colony survived. Sort of had another trial with the essential oils. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm