>I am applying ApiLife Var to a hive that consists of three medium hive
>bodies.  The brood nest is approximately 7 frames wide in the bottom hive
>body and 4 frames wide in the middle hive body.  The top hive body is all
>honey.  Should I apply the treatment on top of the middle hive body or on
>top of the bottom hive body.

Thanks, Bob, for the prompt.  I'm not going to be able to give as
definitive an answer as I'd like.  As long as Apilife has been used in
Europe, I would think these sorts of things would have been studied, at
least informally, but I don't personally have the contacts.

At Brushy Mountain, where I work, we use three chambers for most of the
bees here, although they're 3/4-depth chambers.  The way Steve, the owner,
has us apply the Apilife is to place it above the highest chamber with
brood in it, which means we put it underneath any chambers with nothing but
honey.  I should explain, though, that our hives are mostly just for
experimentation and that labor efficiency is mostly a non-issue for us.
That said, my guess is that what we're doing is most optimal but that
placing it on the top of the whole stack would make a nearly insignificant
difference.

It might be worth noting that the Stanghellini study in New Jersey in
October-November (which is not a time period I would recommend for treating
with Apilife in that temperature zone) found very marginal effectiveness (I
think sixty-some percent) in double deep hives and pretty good
effectiveness (I think low ninety-something) in single deep hives.
Nonetheless I'm not inclined to attribute that difference to placement of
the Apilife.

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