# OAV vs Dribble brood on



## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I have put this data up before. And as many know I am often critical of the "vape" culture (over use/constant use/abuse) and prefer an IMP mite control program(I am critical of let them die as well)


msl said:


> Studys show OAV kills more mites in a brood less situation, but OA trickle drops mites for a longer peirod of time... ie mite peak drop is usaly 6 or so days. Studys are showing that when used brood on it kills more mites, it seems the longer action time alows it to contact more mites as they emerge and thus kill more mites even thow it kills a lower prestantage of mites exposed to it
> 
> _Significantly more mites fell six days after OA application than 2 or 4 days after OA application. This statistic may be interpreted several ways. One interpretation is that OA has residual activity against varroa for at least six days post-treatment. Charrière et al. (2004) and Gregorc and Planinc (2004) report that mite fall can occur over a 3 week period in hives treated with OA _ Aliano 2008 refereeing trickle https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/...redir=1&article=1181&context=entomologyfacpub
> 
> ...


but with Randy Oliver starting to release info about his small scale trial putting them head to head, and his results backing the above studys I thought I would open a full topic on it
_I can share some data from a recent experiment in which I tracked mite drop and alcohol wash counts in four test hives, full of brood, in late spring. Two hives were vaporized (one with a Varrox, one with Provape 110), and two dribbled with OA in solution (one with 1:1 water : sugar, the other with 1:1 water: glycerin). I then reapplied the vaporizations (but not the dribbles) at days 10 and 19.

The glycerin dribble caused by far the greatest initial increase in mite drop--the other three were about the same. The two dribbles resulted in the best mite reduction initially, but by Day 26, all four colonies exhibited roughly 50% reductions in their alcohol wash counts from baseline--after a single dribble, compared to three vaporizations at roughly 10-day intervals. Keep in mind, that there was an n of only one for each treatment, so don't run too far with this data.

The above results suggest that the added humectants increased the efficacy of the OA greatly--initially as well as over time, and indicate that the
effect of the crystals from vaporization is very short term (this is supported by Saskia Schneider's findings)._ http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1807&L=BEE-L&D=0&P=115030

it took 3 OAVs to have the same effect as one dribble

The 1st response from many will be the OAV wasn't done right, ie "why 10 days apart instead of the more standard 4-7 often given" the answer is here http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-varroa-problem-part-15/
The good news for many is the high speed type vaporizers did not seem to suffer performance compared to the slow pan type! 
as he said, don't run too far with with it, hopefully there is a larger trial coming.. along with a article with deeper details


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## Groundhwg (Jan 28, 2016)




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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl the findings that you are stating are quite contrary to findings in the UK by Ratnieks and his group I think round about 2014/2015. In these findings OA was administered to many hives with also an untreated control group. The findings stated there was that OAV was superior to OA/dribble and OA/spray in mite efficacy and loss of bees due to treatment. These were done on broodless hives in early winter and the winter survival was greatest in the group that was treated with OAV furthermore the amount of brood in the OAV in the spring build up was in the order of 40% greater than the hives that received the OA in other forms. As far as the dribble method with OA/glycerin, I actually did trials almost 2 years ago fogging that mixture and although there were mite falls they were no way near the mite falls obtained with OAV so I am not buying that story.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

they are not contrary at all, Ratnieks was brood less, we are talking brood on , the much talked about difference in loss of bees was a whopping 16 bees


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

In my trails OA dribble is much better at knocking down mites per treatment. However, now that I have a provap, it and apiguard are my mite killers.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl how do you explain away the 40% increase in brood.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> The amount of brood after four months is also of interest. In particular, sublimation resulted in significantly more brood than controls, at 4.8 (average of the four treatment means) vs. 4.1 frames. The numbers of frames of brood was not different among control, trickling, and spraying colonies


 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2015.1106777
looks like that works out to dribble had 14.58% less brood 

Of note in their latest publication, the same study group was seeing a almost 4% reduction in brood and 8% queen loss when they tested 2 OAVs 14 days apart vs 1... makes you wonder what 5-6 will do.....or the 10+ some people are using..

I don’t try to explain a single study with a small sample size as results tend to vary, rather I try to look at the trend across studys.. 
As an example in the study we keep refreancing the control hives were TF, and they only lost 20% of them. Most of us would agree that data in not indicative of what majority of beekeepers who leave there hives untreated experience. Neither is treating hives in January that have and advrage of 14.7 mites per 100 with one shot of OAV and only taking 2% losses, but that what they found.... not common to most beekeepers experience either

Any way there is a growing trend with studys and beekeeper accounts that "brood on" that dribble appears to have better results, a wize beekeeper will keep doing what is working for them, but keep an eye on progress.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Sadly there are market forces, doing their job on this forum too, who like to sell gadgets which produce seriously dangerous gas to humans, and these market forces do everything they can to push down OAD, which is, and I have said this on this forum for at least couple times before, by far the best, safest, cheapest and most effective (in brood situations too, it seems) way to kill mites.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

msl
I have actually enjoyed this thread so far, thanks for posting it.
Cheers 
gww


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

msl:



> Keep in mind, that there was an n of only one for each treatment, so don't run too far with this data.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Sadly there are market forces, doing their job on this forum too, who like to sell gadgets which produce seriously dangerous gas to humans, and these market forces do everything they can to push down OAD, which is, and I have said this on this forum for at least couple times before, by far the best, safest, cheapest and most effective (in brood situations too, it seems) way to kill mites.


These assertions are absurd Juhani.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Beekeeping has been subjected to market forces since beekeeping began, Practical beekeepers who do not rely on others for their hardware are way ahead of those who do and that goes for the newer types of vaporizers and as I have said before those who cannot do buy. Also we need to be clear OAV is not a gas it is a particle vapor and I have provided proof enough of that. I have also pointed out how dangerous water is to swimmers if they are inclined to breathe in it. I have also pointed out that swimming and vaporizing requires a little common sense and if you are accident prone and lack common sense you should not be keeping bees or driving for that matter. If a person should get a little stray vapor near him it is common sense to hold ones breath and move away now if you cannot handle that try some other hobby. Msl The reason I researched and built the type of vaporizer I use is precisely for the reason of queen loss as you are inserting and heating a device inside of the hive and if the queen happens to be directly under the varrox type of device you could end up with a cooked queen, does not happen with the new devices which are quicker . 
and much less invasive than any other method of applying OA. Further more I would say most of the research on OAV was carried out with the varrox type of applicator which has become the dinosaur of OAV application methods . This information is not hearsay as I have been using OAV for the past 4 to 5 years and I rarely even wear a mask and I would treat my hives around 12 treatments a year and as for bees? You want to buy some! I struggle to move my excess every year and my losses mostly due to starvation in yards with difficult access is less than half of the average state loss generally around 10% Market forces would drive me to purchase the amitraz based treatment not OAV who the so called experts say cannot be used on hives with brood, just tell that to my bees they dont know that.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> These assertions are absurd Juhani.


They are not...maby not sinister in nature, but the simple facts are no one makes money on dribble and people do make money on the "fact" that OAV is "better" the dribble

yes don't run too far with randys data... don't run too far with Ratnieks few dozen hives either..

As I said, look at the trend, the trend is when comparing OAV to dribble with brood on dribble comes out ahead, and kills might for a much longer period of time then OAV
Tennessee's Bees is seeing it, Randy is seeing it, Charrière et al. (2004) Gregorc and Planinc (2004), Giacomelli 2013 etc.
I haven't see a study yet that bucks the trend, I you have one please post it.. my views are very plastic, driven by the data at hand We all have confrontation bias, and we are all beter if we challenge each other.

The comforation bias of Towards integrated control of varroa: 2) toward OAV feels large.. as show in there language and set up
Ie 150 seconds (2.5 min at the 2.25 dose) to aply trickle dose when other study's had it down to 24 seconds (Papanastasiou 2007) and then they didn't follow the vaporizers manufactures instructions in a effort to artificially speed up the vaping, ignoring the post treatment in hive 2min cool down and 10 min pause between hives and dunk in a bucket of water http://www.thorne.co.uk/image/data/Documents/GA_VARROX_2012_print.pdf

yes the point is moot when compared to a JohnO-Vap or provap, but it goes to state of mind, the experiment dezine was set up to favor OAV, and this is clearly show in the time category 
here is one guy, while talking to the camera and taking his time, dribbling at 45 seconds a hive, the is NO good reason for 2 people to be taking over 3 times as long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQc6ZdQsYj4

if you look at the data, dribble droped more mites 









dribble was the same in both (93.3%) drop and washes, but OAV had a slight lead in the washes. so they used the wash data to make there claims



> not OAV who the so called experts say cannot be used on hives with brood, just tell that to my bees they dont know that


well.... at 12 treatments a year......maybe your bees do know, and your just not listening to your bees? 
I get by with stock section, a single broodless OA trickle, drone culling, and a spring split. 

Any way, keep an eye out to the future, it seems what we "know" changes regularly


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl once again you are comparing apples to oranges, you can take a look at the you tube link I posted on the band heater vaporizer thread and you will see I did the camera the talking and messing about a bit and did 12 hives with OAV in little over 15 minutes, Now I would love to see you OA dribble those hives in 45 seconds as there are 2 box hives, 3 box hives and 4 box hives and I see you are talking about broodless hives in the video.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

as I said


> yes the point is moot when compared to a JohnO-Vap or provap,


 your adding the apples to the oranges, the point is not band heater vs dribble... the point is what was done to manipulate the time outcome of pan heater vs dribble in the study, and that puts a cloud over the objectivity of the study 

If I had one, no dought I would reach for the band heater for a brood less late fall treatment, the trend says they have an advantage, Randys work suggests they don't suffer from OA break down vs the pan heaters... 

however the trend while brood is on is different... and if I have a problem hive I need to pull honey off to treat in an out yard, and *IF* one dribble has the same effect and 3 OAVs, thats 2-4 less trips to the outyard dragging an inverter and battery. Worth paying attention to in my book, see were it all shakes out 



> I see you are talking about broodless hives in the video.


yes brood less single hives in the video, as were comparing it to the studys broodless treatments to show just how outlandish there 2 man team's 2.5 min per single hive trickle time was. apples to apples

to your point
will a dubble take more time... not realy, just tilt the top box up and shoot
will a triple, yes.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

msl:



> They are not...maby not sinister in nature, but the simple facts are no one makes money on dribble and people do make money on the "fact" that OAV is "better" the dribble


As I said to Juhani, I say to you; These assertions are absurd.
You should be ashamed accusing others of such nefarious activities unless you are willing to prove it.

Randy Oliver warned: "Keep in mind, that there was an n of only one for each treatment, so don't run too far with this data." Not only has his advice been 
ignored but has been expanded upon and utilized at super sonic speed in order to make a point! how ironic.


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

After years of being very happy with the results of a "fall cleanup" by dribble, I bought a certain vaporizer, and like an idiot, vaporized rather than dribbled. 
The results were not good.
Understanding that I foolishly had not done my due diligence, I ran drop test comparisons this year.
The results were startling.
First of all, as happy as I have been with dribbling; I had no idea of how INCREDIBLY good it works.
As for the vaporizer,,,, I have thought about giving it away as a door prize but decided that I would feel guilty bamboozling a fellow beekeeper into thinking that they had a workable solution for mites.
Hopefully for the price I payed, I can come up with some non beekeeping use for it some day. 
Or put it in a beekeeping museum some day in the future.
VERY disappointing!


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Not only has his advice been ignored but has been expanded upon and utilized at super sonic speed in order to make a point! how ironic.


take another look... 
I posted a list of studys, some with sample sizes in around 70 hives , even the famed "Ratnieks" study, that is brought up almost every time to defend OAV as the gold standard showed dribble dropped more mites (post 13)
Randys small trial is just another on the list, now add Harrys... there is a trend.
Harry I would love to here more about your comparisons drop tests 



> You should be ashamed accusing others of such nefarious activities unless you are willing to prove it.


There is noting nefarious afoot... just people being people 
if you sell fords, your focus is why fords are better 
if your a payed TF speaker your focus is why TF is better
if you sell pesticides to farmers... well you get the point 
I am not impinging anyone's honor
If I run the local bee shop, is it in my best interest to research dribbel so i can tell people to go buy wood bleach and a $1 syringe at the feed store? 

Or is it my best move to take the internet at face value, explane they should by the bushy Mt package I have on the wall with the proper label and that studys have show that $100 vaporizer I Have on the wall is gentler on the bees.
no lies, no falsehoods, no misleading information, just good salesmanship and marketing,


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

johno said:


> ... we need to be clear OAV is not a gas it is a particle vapor ...


I do so wish people would get their heads around that. However, I think part of the problem lies with the use of the word "Vapour" (UK spelling) - which infers that it's a gas. I've even read an article by a university professor - who really ought to know better - who states that the 'white cloud' one sees is a gas.(*)

Which is why I prefer to use the abbreviation VOA: VapourisED Oxalic Acid - which hopefully emphasises that the vapourisation is a 'past tense' event - i.e. it occurred at the heated surface, when the vapour itself would have been invisible. Almost as soon as that vapour leaves the heated surface and cools below it's sublimation temperature, it reverts back into it's solid form - but - because the vapour was a gas it's molecules were small and spread widely apart - hence the solid thus now formed is of a microcrystalline 'dust', and as such has become visible.
LJ

(*) Just as - in common speech - we refer to the white cloud being emitted from a boiling kettle as 'steam' - which it isn't, it's actually water vapour. The 'steam' (correctly speaking), is the half-inch or so of invisible gas which occurs at the tip of the kettle's spout. Steam itself being invisible


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

msl: 

No need to take another look. The best use for vapor is clear to me through use on my own hives. The point you seem to ignore is that 
the use of vapor does have a place in treating varroa mites. Dribble has it's place too, it also has a best time to use for effectiveness and limiting the risk to
the bees. All of our varroacides balance the same issues of best use (method, dose, time) and risk to the colony.
If you for one minute advocate that dribble is the absolute BEST method of treatment you are mistaken. All have their proper place in the arsenal to combat varroa. The realm of treatment for varroa is evolving rapidly and very fluid, it should be described as such in discussions and absolutes avoided. 
What is your beef anyway? is it with varroa destructor or with people who may do and see things differently than you do? It seems the latter.



> They are not...maby not sinister in nature, but the simple facts are no one makes money on dribble and people do make money on the "fact" that OAV is "better" the dribble


Your explanation changes nothing.


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## Spur9 (Sep 13, 2016)

HarryVanderpool said:


> As for the vaporizer,,,, I have thought about giving it away as a door prize but decided that I would feel guilty bamboozling a fellow beekeeper into thinking that they had a workable solution for mites.


You can bamboozle me. I'll be more than happy to take it. I'll pay the shipping.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> If you for one minute advocate that dribble is the absolute BEST method of treatment you are mistaken. All have their proper place in the arsenal to combat varroa





> The point you seem to ignore is that the use of vapor does have a place in treating varroa mites.,


the only way you get that impressionist is not reading the thread
as I said in post #1


> brood less oav killed 640.97% more mite then control and trickle only killed 465.82% more then control.


post #15


> If I had one, no dought I would reach for the band heater for a brood less late fall treatment, the trend says they have an advantage,





> Dribble has it's place too, it also has a best time to use for effectiveness and limiting the risk to
> the bees. All of our varroacides balance the same issues of best use (method, dose, time) and risk to the colony.


that is ALL I am sujesting


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

msl said:


> the only way you get that impressionist is not reading the thread
> as I said in post #1
> 
> post #15
> ...


Your passing reference to broodless hives is just that, a passing reference used to support your distaste for how vaporization is used by other beekeepers, and in fact has nothing to do with the topic of this thread which is
OAV vs Dribble brood on. 
Had you stuck to the topic of oa treatment with brood on there would be no need for this entire interaction but you did not.
The fact is you have interjected all sorts of off topic comments, made thinly veiled accusations of others and in haste opened a full discussion on a topic readers were warned by the author was preliminary and needed further experimentation. 

I'm beginning to feel as others do regarding these discussions of yours


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Harry you are one of the few remaining commercials left on bee source and therefore I value your opinion. You mentioned using OA as a pre winter treatment and was not pleased with the results of OAV compared to OA dribble which is fair enough, were you using one of the modern vaporizers when you treated with OAV. The other question is what do you use to treat your hives with in late summer. Do you overwinter in single deeps as that will make life much easier to do OA dribble. The reason I am asking is that I have been using OAV year round and do not think OA dribble would be easy to do on 3 or 4 box hives in mid summer or that it would be good to do multiple treatments
Johno


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Hi Johno,
I'm not going to name the vaporizer other than I can tell you that I could have dribbled thousands upon thousands of hives for the price I paid for it.
Our hives are double deep.
One new thing that I have always wanted to do and finally have done this year:
After almond pollination, The last thing that I do EVERY SINGLE DAY before driving away from home to work on bees is mix up 1 gallon of oxalic solution 3.4% and load up my sprayer.
How many times as you are inspecting hives do you find a broodless hive? Or maybe not broodless. Maybe you find nothing but frames of eggs?
Those hives are the prime candidate for a dribble, To find them and realize that you don't have fresh oxalic ready to go would be a big loss in my opinion.
Then at one point in the year, the hives all got dribbled whether they needed it or not.
It's probably my imagination but it really seems like the patterns have improved this year!


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

HarryVanderpool said:


> Hi Johno,
> I'm not going to name the vaporizer other than I can tell you that I could have dribbled thousands upon thousands of hives for the price I paid for it.
> Our hives are double deep.
> One new thing that I have always wanted to do and finally have done this year:
> ...


:thumbsup:


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

> How many times as you are inspecting hives do you find a broodless hive? Or maybe not broodless. Maybe you find nothing but frames of eggs?
> Those hives are the prime candidate for a dribble


The broodless hives or those with nothing but eggs are prime candidates for OA vapor as it knocks down more mites in the broodless state than dribble.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

HarryVanderpool said:


> One new thing that I have always wanted to do and finally have done this year:
> After almond pollination, The last thing that I do EVERY SINGLE DAY before driving away from home to work on bees is mix up 1 gallon of oxalic solution 3.4% and load up my sprayer.


Harry - I've heard of people spraying OA solution, but have never been able to ask them questions ...

When you spray, do you pull each frame and spray each side, or do you spray over the top bars as if you were dribbling with a syringe ?

How on earth do you estimate the dose - is this done by duration ? Presumably first time out you'd spray into a receiver and then measure that liquid to determine the dosing rate (per 5 seconds, or whatever) ?

Thanks
LJ


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Well, actually, even though I use a "sprayer" it isn't spraying.
You want to back the spray tip out until the liquid comes out in a solid steady stream.
Then, you run the pressure as low as it will go. enough pressure to send the stream about 3 feet before it drops to the ground, for measurement.
When you need more pressure, my sprayer takes only 1/2 of a pump or it's too much.
Yes. To calibrate yourself at 5ml per seam, spray into a graduated beaker and visualize that you are spraying the seams.
Then, after you have done a group of hives, look at how much liquid you have left.
It does not have to be absolutely perfect. There is a margin for error.
I think that there is some good info on Randy Oliver's site about this.
In fact, I learned the calibration procedure from him.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Thanks Harry. Don't know if you've seen this: http://agronomy.emu.ee/vol08Spec2/p08s207.pdf It's about spraying (in the conventional sense) of 0.5% OA in plain water.
LJ


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

CVMP assessment report for VarroMed http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB...ment_report/veterinary/002723/WC500225541.pdf

a prepackaged dribble with a touch of FA witch has recently been EU approved . Suggested treatment courses of up to 5 times 6 days apart, and a total of 9x per year


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

msl said:


> CVMP assessment report for VarroMed http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB...ment_report/veterinary/002723/WC500225541.pdf
> 
> a prepackaged dribble with a touch of FA witch has recently been EU approved . Suggested treatment courses of up to 5 times 6 days apart, and a total of 9x per year


"In this study, four different doses (33, 66, 132, or 220 μg OAD/bee combined with 3.75, 7.5, 15, and
28 μg formic acid/bee, respectively) were administered to caged infested bees. The ratio of
approximately 8 parts of OAD:1 part of FOA was derived from practical treatment experiences.

For the fixed combination, acaricidal efficacy above 90% was achieved at 48 h after administration, from
doses of 66 µg OAD and 7.5 µg FOA per bee, and more. Similarly, acaricidal activity of OAD alone
exceeded the threshold of 90% at 24 h after administration, from doses corresponding to 66 µg OAD.
Acaricidal activity was nil for placebo (vehicle) and FOA alone.
Bee mortality 72 hours after administration of the fixed combination and OAD alone at the two lower
doses tested (31.8 µg or 66.3 µg OAD/bee, 3.6 µg or 7.3 µg FOA/bee) was comparable and near to 0%.
*At the maximum tested dose (195 µg OAD/bee, 21.6 µg FOA/bee) bee mortality was 20% for OAD alone
compared to 30% for the proposed fixed combination.* 

fixed combination: 8 parts OAD: one part FOA (= this commercial product?)

The VarroaMed commercial product is approved by authorities although is causes greater mortality of bees than pure OAD?
Good marketing.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

don't forget they got brood on/supers on approval as well!! For the entire EU

Comes down to money... some one figgered out how to make trickle shelf stable so it was worth it to pay for the leg work. nefarious market forces and all :lpf:


yes it killed more in over dose, but at the suggested max dose witch killed 90% of the mites it was almost zero


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