I'm with Chris on this one. Please don't!! I bought some bees last year
which I treated with Apistan, and nothing happened. The mites just went on
killing my bees. The person I bought them from later admitted he kept the
strips in much longer than the label recommended.

I switched to Checkmite, and the mites were killed off immediately.

I spoke to a wonderful lady at the Farmer's Market today, who I met last
summer. She had three beehives which her children were working as a (what
we in the States call) a 4-H project. I almost begged her to let me come
out there and treat the hives for mites, but her father in law sees himself
as an expert, and hasn't much time for new-fangled ideas. Well, she
admitted her biggest hive was dead, as long term Bee-L'ers would expect,
and the other two are very weak. She was almost in tears as she said she
knew her dad-in-law was wrong, but what could she do?

In this area, it was and is widespread to keep apistan strips in all year,
and the county ag commissioner told me that I was the only one with a Sec.
18 permit to use Checkmite. On the one hand I'm glad, as I have a
tremendous advantage over the other guys, most of who's hives are dead. But
what happens when they get an illegal source of the active ingredient in
Checkmite?

Bottom line is follow the label.

Tim Vaughan
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