?? For > killing the mites one needs to create this sort of "soup" on the bottom > for > the varroa to have a higher time exposed to the formic. Exactly and why Bill (Mitegone) designed a special entrance piece to use to keep the "soup" from moving out the entrance too fast. Placing the formic in the brood nest has its pros & cons although many advocating such a placement seem to ignore the problems those attempting such placement have faced. Clearing a hive of varroa in 7 days is a big selling factor.(Miteaway) Losing your queen and a large amount of eggs and larva is a big con. In my opinion strips in the brood nest will produce a decent varroa knock down and most likely kill but one needs to understand the risks. The only purpose to placing the strips in the brood nest in my opinion is the killing of varroa in cells. Otherwise top or side placement works. The discussion is interesting as I asked a pest exterminator and he said the best place to kill a pest is placement of the product in the area the pest frequents. If you want to kill varroa in cells then the product (formic) needs to get into the cells on a level to kill varroa (and stay at the level until varroa is killed which may take a period of time). Perhaps once the formic fumes penetrate the sealed cells the formic slowly dissipates slowing the downward movement? I would have to do some serious experiments before using the formic strips on my hives. Today is the perfect time for the maker to introduce the strips because if problems happened you could always blame hive loss on many other issues killing hives today or simply point to CCD. (works for chemical companies) bob *********************************************** 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