Hi, All,
 
I have been out of pocket for quite some time and was shocked at how many
e-mail messages I had, when I finally retrieved them (543!  Yikes!).  I saw
several posts on the subject of smoker fuels.
 
On November 7-9, the Texas Beekeeping Association had their annual
convention, this year in Houston.  On Friday, Dr. Frank Eischen, of the USDA
in Weslaco, Texas, delivered a talk on "Natural Chemicals for the Control of
Varroa".  Much of what he shared was news that we have discussed here on the
BEE-L.  He, of course, talked about the use of the chemicals that we are
already familiar with, as well as essential oils.  They have seen moderate
to good results with the essential oils, which jives with the reports we
have encountered on the LIST.  However, he touched on an aspect of delivery
that sounds very promising and was exciting to me.
 
Now I know there have been reports, recently, as to the negative effects of
smoking your bees, but that's what I want to talk about. They have been
experimenting with the use of various plant materials in the smoker.  I
can't remember how many different plants they have tried, but some that they
were most interested in were citrus, Melaleuca, Tansy, Cedar, and I can't
remember the rest of the list. There were about three other items on the list.
 
Some of these materials, that were tried, achieved between 80% - 90%
knockdown of the mite.  One important factor that they took into account was
the smoke's effect on the bees.  There were four factors that they looked
at, (1) The material does a good job of knocking down the mite population,
(2) The material does not do a good job of knocking down the mite
population, (3) The material makes the bees sick, (4) The material does not
make the bees sick.  Obviously, the best combination is a material that does
a good job of knocking down the mite population without making the bees
sick.  And so another obvious conclusion follows, that they found that these
materials varied in their combination of these traits.
 
They are still in the process of trying these different materials and they
are getting new materials, from beekeepers, on a regular basis, that they
will also try.  So far, the study has yielded that citrus leaves
(specifically grapefruit) do the best job of knocking down the mites (in the
80-90% range) with little or no side-affects for the bees.  Cedar bark and
needles seemed to work fairly well also.  I believe, to date, they still
have yet to try the Tansy.  The data that I saw looked pretty promising.  I
hope to see more forthcoming, on this subject, from Dr. Eischen.
 
If anyone wants more detailed information about this, I'll see what I can do
about getting it.
 
 
Regards,
 
 
Mike Wallace
Sar Shalom Apiary
McKinney, Texas   USA
"Out of the heart, the mouth speaks."