# Fogging mites



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Not an approved or legal (nor safe for the operator, nor effective against the mites, IMO) way to go about it.

Search for the recent threads that discuss this at length before you try it.

Enj.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Matt yocham said:


> oxalic acid and alcohol


Alcohol explodes.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

There have been occasions when fogging with mineral oil that the vapour has been ignited and causes a flash, I tried fogging a mixture of glycerin and OA to see if it was possible. The flash point of glycerin was lower than mineral oil however when I tried the glycerin mixture I could not get it to ignite. I have heard that the same was true when fogging with ethyl alcohol although I have not tried it. Ethyl alcohol and OA mixture that is. The tests done by most I know of have not done mite checks before and after treatment and also to monitor for mite drops, this could really be a quick and easy way of treating for mites but there is no point unless you know you are killing mites. When I asked these questions from a beekeeper who was trying this system out he maintained that it must have worked as mite counts after the treatment of 2 hives resulted in a count of 2 mites and 0 mites, but we do not know the count before treatment and did not look for mite drops after treatment so that told us nothing.
Johno


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

I bought some apivar and have that on my hive that had a really hight mite count after a alcohol wash. I did some research and read some old threads on mineral oil and fogging and that didnt seem to work. I am going to buy the fogger and the oxalic acid and next time i do the wash on my bees try it on a high count hive. Even if it dont work i will still use the acid in a vaporizer.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

The only way you are going to know it kills mites is to have an insert under a screened bottom board and know there are mites in the hive. IF there are mites in the hive after 24 hours of the treatment you should see a substantial mite drop.
Johno


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Have been using a fogger and OA mixed with alcohol. Don't have time to prove it works. 
Am going to be relying on it this fall. Next spring will tell a story.

This late-spring I had a lot of crawlers. Treated with OA in the fogger and "no more crawlers".
Sorry but that's all I got. 
The doubters will discount this testimony fast enough.


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

johno said:


> The only way you are going to know it kills mites is to have an insert under a screened bottom board and know there are mites in the hive. IF there are mites in the hive after 24 hours of the treatment you should see a substantial mite drop.
> Johno


I dont use screen bottom boards. I will do a wash before and 2 days after i fog to see what happens


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Can you not cut some thin white cardboard that you can slip into the hive on top of the bottom board, with mites seeing is believing.
Johno


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

I thought about that but wouldnt the bees just crawl all over it. How long would i leave it in?


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Bees are going to crawl all over your solid bottom board anyhow. I would say leave the cardboard in overnight, even if you don't see all the mites you should find quite a lot of dead mites on the cardboard which will give an indication of the success of the treatment.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

here is the long and short of it... 
its hard to push enuff OA in to the space of the hive with the added vapors and the dilution rate in alcohol, and then there is all the talk of thermal break down, etc
it takes very little OA to kill some mites Radetzki et al. (2000) achieved 82.8% with 0.5g per hive body but it wasn't sufcant knock down to keep the mites form bouncing back and we saw in Maggi latest work in some cases 1/8th strength OAD kill 35% of the mites

the question is not if some mites will die, but if enuf of them will.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Behind every successful business man there is some one telling him he's doing it all wrong. Now the real long and short of it is how the hell will we really know unless we try something out whether it will work or not. It is much easier to be an armchair prophet of doom than to go out in the field and try to find answers. If one was to rely on published papers we would still be of the opinion that mites live off the hemolymph of bees, that was published in the 1990's I believe.
Johno


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## Groundhwg (Jan 28, 2016)

Any updates from folks using fogger with OA. Thanks.


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## Groundhwg (Jan 28, 2016)

Matt yocham said:


> I dont use screen bottom boards. I will do a wash before and 2 days after i fog to see what happens


What was your updated information/mite count after wash?


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

10 mites before fogging 5 days after I fogged again then wait 5 days and did a wash and came up with 11 mites. So my conclusion is fogging is just a bandaid. If you care about mite control don't fog.


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

Not only did the fogging not work well I some how got in a hurry and washed a queen. So had to do a late season combine. Bad deal all the way around.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

How much brood was on the hive?


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## Matt yocham (Aug 3, 2016)

There was some but not a lot. I can't remember for sure. But I know that most the mites that I got on the 2 and 3 wash came from brood. I also ran home made sticky boards and was lucky to have 20 mites on board a week.


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## jonsl (Jul 16, 2016)

If vaporizing works what would be the benefit of fogging?


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## Groundhwg (Jan 28, 2016)

jonsl said:


> If vaporizing works what would be the benefit of fogging?


Greatest thing about vaporizing (OAV) is that it works at killing mites, biggest draw back is that is slow. The benefit of “fogging” is that you can do it quick, fast, and in a hurry but so far no one has proven that it control mites. You could very rapidly treat your bees against mites and the damage they cause by walking around your hives three times and yellowing “Mites get off my bees!” Unless it works than fast is not necessarily the best option.


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