Bill Truesdell wrote:
> There is research going on using smoke to get mite drop. The
> combination of screened bottom boards and smoke with 90 to 100%
> mite drop gives a classic, non lethal and fairly benign solution
> to varroa. So, get a smoke that gives near 100% mite drop with no
> harm to the bees in combination with a screened bottom board and
> you have a quick, easy, affordable solution to varroa that
> matches the efficacy of any pesticide.

Ted Fischer wrote:
> The one problem that logically comes up, of course, is that smoke treatment,
> no matter how well it promotes mite drop, only can affect the small
> proportion of mites that happen to be on bees and not within capped cells.
> To be certain of getting all the mites, one would have to to into the hives
> on a daily basis (for how many days? 45?) and smoke....

The thought that occurred to me was more along the lines of "since some of the
mites will be out on the bees and some will be in capped cells, then the smoke
will only affect the bees that are on the mites (same as the chemicals on the
strips)."  The question that then logically comes to my mind is "when a varroa
mite comes out of a cell, how many days before it enters another cell to
reproduce?"  You would have that may days you could wait before doing the smoke
drop treatment again.  My guess is that you ought to be able to do it on a
weekly interval and eventually get all the mites, but I don't know the details
of the mite's development and life history to know whether or not this is true.
The length of time the mites stay in a cell that was just capped until they
emerge is, I assume, the length of time it takes for the bee to develop.  That
would most probably mean that the smoke treatments (at periodic intervals)
would have to be repeated until all the cells that were capped at the time of
the initial treatment had emerged.  So again, my guess would be that if one
week intervals were sufficient, then you would probably need at least four
smoke drop treatments at one week intervals, including the initial treatment.
Now, somebody who knows more about the mite's biology than I do, please respond
and tell us the length of time (minimum and maximum) before the newly emerged
mite goes into another cell.  If it can or does go into a new cell immediately
upon emerging from the old cell, then, yes, daily smoke treatments would
probably be necessary to get this method to work.

Layne Westover
College Station, Texas