Robin said;
Bob has tested SOE I think. Any comments?
I fell behind in my bee work this fall and although I used/tested both
Apilife Var and sucrose octanoate I do not have any actual data on efficacy.
My friend Jerry Hayes (Dadant) which included me and another Missouri
beekeeper (Monte Richardson) in field tests said he understands my problem
and appreciates the fact that I will not publish test results which I
consider flawed due to inaccurate timing of doses.
What I know about SOE:
Any common sprayer will work.
Safe to both bees and beekeeper.
Bob's advice:
I believe you can simply pull the outside frame and then slide each frame
over spraying without actually removing frames BUT I HAVE NOT GOT DATA TO
SUPPORT MY OPINION AT THIS TIME. I tried both removing all frames and the
above method. I plan to test again in the spring. Both methods produced
varroa free hives.
Fogging ( burgess fogger)of SOE did not work!
SOE cleared the hives I used the product on of varroa. I got not one varroa
on a 24 hour sticky board after treatment. Dadant claims 100% varroa
control. I do not know about 100% but the control was above 90% in my
opinion (wish I could give actual figures!)
Further testing needs to be done .
Keep in mind that so far no researcher in the world has come up with a bee
which can survive varroa forever untreated. Even Russian & SMR bees might
need a varroa clean up treatment every other year or so! Apilife var and SOE
could be a possible solution as a 98% efficacy would not be needed with
Russian & SMR bees.
Bob
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