The Thymol 'dust' was made by mixing 0.2g thymol crystals per 1g powdered sucrose. Application was by placing newspaper above brood frames and sprinkling 30g of the formulation on top, so the dust contained 6g thymol.
Thymol was the only effective dry treatment. Thymol in dust and glycerin were the most effective (highest mite kill, lowest bee mortality) of the treatments tested.
T (dust) 96.6%
T (glycerin) 92.4%
Oxalic (glycerin) 78.7%
With the OA they used the Randy Oliver soaked towels method but they only used 12g OA per hive.
Overall result: T (dust) wins.
Even the control hives (no treatment) had only 1 colony loss over winter out of 6 hives = 83% survival, which I found odd. However control hives had 3.8 frames of bees in spring whereas T (dust) had 6.3 frames of bees. OA (glycerin) only had 3.9 frames of bees in spring.
Seems to me that they maybe used too low a dose of OA, and that maybe the mite load in Autumn/Fall should have been higher to give a tougher test.
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