# Saving a hive from advanced PMS with powdered sugar only!!!



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

As a quick update to the status of my recovered hive/nuc, I did a careful 24-hour natural mite drop count yesterday. There were a total of 5 mites, one of which appeared to be immature. On a cold day with all of the foragers in, it looks like there are a total of about 3-4 frames of bees so this double-deep strong hive suffering from advanced PMS has now been reduced to a medium-sized nuc, but the infestation from mites is down to a manageable low level and the bees appear much healthier. They have stores, they are bringing in tons of pollen on any day reaching the 50's (which is most days lately), and I am pretty confident the hive is on the rebound.

The bees should now be growing at a much faster rate then the mites and so in any case, I expect the mite problem to be in check until the late summer. I plan to continue to monitor mite levels on a monthly or bi-weekly basis and will continue to post updates on this 'naturally' (no chemical treatments use) recovered hive.

-fafrd


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Sounds like it lot of mites to be dropping naturally in 24 hours,think they will need treating soon,long before the end of next summer.

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/BeeDiseases/varroaCalculator.cfm


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes, although I've been very interested to see your success, and you have done well, imho 5 mites daily natural drop from a 3-4 frame nuc, at this time of year, is highish. 

The question is can the bees outbreed them? I'll be following the thread with interest to see how you go, and if you have to continue the sugar treatments.


----------



## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Brother....if you want an accurate mite count use an alcohol wash. If you are basing your mite counts on natural drop and dusting you are doing your bees a dis-service. If you don't have a problem dumping all that sugar on them why not feed some 1:1 with some thymol in it. That would elimate your mite problem. Good luck.


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> Yes, although I've been very interested to see your success, and you have done well, imho 5 mites daily natural drop from a 3-4 frame nuc, at this time of year, is highish.
> 
> The question is can the bees outbreed them?


At this time of year, the bees should be able to outbreed the mites and I think that the absolute numbers of mites should be more important that than infestation %. 

As long as the mite numbers are significantly less than the number of open larvae approaching the capping stage, the bee population should be growing at a rate that is at least twice as fast as the mites, meaning that infestation % should be decreasing until the hive reaches full strength in the late spring / early summer

Let' say I've got about 1/6th of a full strength hive, or about 10,000 bees at the moment. The amount of open and capped brood I saw would total to at least one side of one deep frame, so let's say 3000 cells. Assuming this brood has been laid down continually over a 21 day period, this would correspond to about 150 new cells being laid per day (which is worst-case, there is amost certainly more laying going on now, so the actual number of larvae per day is likely already significantly higher).

If we assume that the 24-hour natural mite drop reflects the number of new viable foundress mites emerging in 24 hours, I've got something like 5 foundress mites infesting 150 newly-capped brood cells per day, meaning that at most 3% of the fresh brood is being inifested (meaning more than 97% of the new brood is not being infested).

At this relatively low level of infestation (from the point of view of having the vast majority of the newly laid larvae emerge unscathed), the bees ought to be up to a population of 30,000 bees or more a month from now and the laying rate should be up to at least 500 new eggs per day. Limited to worker brood, the mites should have only succeeded to double their population over the same month (beginning of February), meaning that I can expect to have something like 10 foundress mites infesting 500 newly-capped cells, or down to 2% of the newly capped brood being infested and 98% of the newly emerging brood being unscathed.

Over the subsequent month (beginning of March), the bees will only double their population to a full-strength of 60,000 bees, meaning that the bees and the mites will be growing their populations at about the same rate and the contamination rate will remain at about 2%.

From that point forward, the mites will continue to double their population every month while the bee population will remain relatively constant (unless I simulate a swarm by making a split), meaning that the contamination rate will double every month to 4%, 8%, 16%, 32%, by which time (end of July) I will certainly be back in PMS land if I have not taken some action.

I'm going to continue to monitor the 24-hour natural drop counts to see how this hive handles the greatly reduced mite infestation they now have. By no means is this hive now mite-free, but I believe I have gotten the mite infestation down to a level that if the bees have any VSH genetics or other traits that allow them to combat the mites without my help, they shold have a chance. By monitoring the mite levels from here on out, I hope to learn something about how they are doing.


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

alpha6 said:


> If you don't have a problem dumping all that sugar on them why not feed some 1:1 with some thymol in it. That would elimate your mite problem. Good luck.


I'd prefer to avoid chemicals of any kind if I can. I am not concerend about the impact of sugar and a bit of starch on the hive and the honey I hope to extract from it. Dusting with PS seems to me to be far 'safer' than messing around with any kind of chemical whose dosage level, etc... needs to be carefully monitored and whose impact on the honey and the wax is more questionable.

I was worried about the impact of 'dumping all that sugar' on the bees, but now that I have actually tried it and seen firsthand how the bees deal with it, I am comfortabel that this 'mechanical' treatment has far less impact on a hive than virtually any other form of treatment. More work, probably. Worse for the bees, no.

-fafrd


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Keep us in touch with your findings,will be interesting to see how it goes.
If the calculator is anything to go by, they could have anything from 500 to 2000 mites at this present time.
I use very similar methods to Alpha regards control.


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Pete,

thanks for the link to the calculator. Not sure how it forms the basis of the calculation, but the mite levels it is estimating seem high to me (and I assume it is counting all mites including phoretic and foundress).

I did another 24-hour natural drop mite count and this time got 2 mites.

I don't have too much experience with natural drop mite counting - it seems pretty variable. I may do a count over a full 7 day period as the calculator suggests that averaging over 7 days is a good way to get a more meaningful count.

I have more experence using a 1-hour post-PS-dusting drop count, and the next sunny day we have, I will get a count using that technique as it is probably a better baseline for this hive that I was treating and monitoring earlier using PS dusting.

Based on what I have read, I've been assuming that the 24 hour natural mite drop is a approximate measure of the number of new mites emerging. If 5 cells emerge, there should be about 2x5=10 mites emerging from those cells out of which approximately 5 should drop or die over the subsequent phoretic period of 5 days. In a steady state, 10 mites emerge every day, 5 drop every day, and 5 new cells get infested by foundress mites just before capping. Total number of adult mites would be 5 days x 5 phoretic mites per day = 25 phoretic mites and 13 days x 5 foundress mites per day = 65 foundress mites for 90 mites total. Of course,steady-state is better than best case, and since the mtes are growing at about 2% per day, the actual number will be worse (but less than 2 times worse).

So I can see estimating mite numbers as high as 200 or so based on my natural mite drop count of 5 in 24h, but not 500. The calculator obviously must be based on a different set of assumptions, one of which may be that I now have no drone brood in my hive and the calculator does not seem to provide that as an option.

I will keep everyone posted on how this experiement evolves.

What level do you typically drop you mite levels to by winter using your tymol treatments?

-fafrd


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

*>What level do you typically drop you mite levels to by winter using your tymol treatments?<*
fafrd
Usually down to no mite drop at all,using emulsified thymolised syrup feed,and thymol pads in autumn,also acts against nosema.


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Thanks. No mites dropping over what period? And is your thymolised syrup being fed during a period of broodlessness or could there be some surviving foundress mites hiding out within capped brood?

I'm hoping to avoid the use of chemical-based treatments including thymol, but since you seem pretty happy with your thymol treatments I would be interested to learn more: 

Do you have any concerns about the effect of residual thymol on honey or comb? 

How long to you apply the treatment?

Is the dosage level critical and if so how do you control it?

Are there any other negatives to treament with Thymolized syrup that I am not aware of?

I'm still a relative newbie (entering my second spring) and in the learning phase, so I would appreciate any additional information you can provide.

-fafrd


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

fafrd
i will reply to your questions tomorrow,if Alpha does not beat me to it.


----------



## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

fafrd said:


> I'd prefer to avoid chemicals of any kind if I can. I am not concerend about the impact of sugar and a bit of starch on the hive and the honey I hope to extract from it. Dusting with PS seems to me to be far 'safer' than messing around with any kind of chemical whose dosage level, etc... needs to be carefully monitored and whose impact on the honey and the wax is more questionable.
> 
> I was worried about the impact of 'dumping all that sugar' on the bees, but now that I have actually tried it and seen firsthand how the bees deal with it, I am comfortabel that this 'mechanical' treatment has far less impact on a hive than virtually any other form of treatment. More work, probably. Worse for the bees, no.
> 
> -fafrd


Thymol is an EO, not a chemical anymore then the processed sugar you are using. Bees naturally bring back these oils into the hive when forging on Thyme. So in that sense it is more natural than the highly processed powered sugar you are using on them. But...to each their own. Good luck with your powered sugar treatment when the mites really start to kick in at the end of summer. Controling mites at this time of year is not really an issue...not much brood for them to breed in.


----------



## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

fafrd said:


> I'm hoping to avoid the use of chemical-based treatments including thymol, but since you seem pretty happy with your thymol treatments I would be interested to learn more:
> 
> -fafrd


Sorry, just read this post. I am happy with the way Thymol works and my bees are much more healthy for it.

Do you have any concerns about the effect of residual thymol on honey or comb? - No. I feed in the spring and in the fall when no supers are on. From everything I have read there are no negitives with thymol, including any kind of resistence built up by the mites as is the case with some chemicals used to treat mites. The dosage level is important as too much can cause your bees to act drunk and disoriented but then again all EO's are very powerful and should be used in the minimal amounts that are effective. HBH is comprised of both spearmint and lemongrass EO's...good for the bees but not if you use too much of it. 

I run hundreds of hives and since starting treatments with Thymol three years ago I have had zero mite problems. I run alcohol washes on my bees to get an accurate mite count and have from zero to three counts at all times of the year which is to say that there is between zero to 1% infestation in my hives. I swear by the stuff and other commerical beeks around here are seeing the results and swiching from the likes of Maverk and Havistan to Thymol. 

Hope that helps. I have posted good recipes on beesource if you do a search for them if you need the mixture amounts. 

Again good luck...we all want to see heathy bees.


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Alpha,

thanks for the post and the information. I will check out your recipes. If I have to try a more 'serious' treatment than just PS, Tymol may be the first I consider. I was scared away from it partly because of concerns of some residue making its way into the honey, even if supering as you do.

I have witnessed my bees move their honey around, so there is no guarantee that 100% of the honey in a honey super has come from new post-treatment nectar.

Of course, the same comment can be made about any artificial nectar feed as well as powdered sugar, and if you are correct that bees foraging on Thyme naturally bring a certain amount of tymol into the honey anyway, this concern may be overblown.

I will look into it and let you know if I decide to give it a try.

Since you have obviously done quite a bit of research on the subject, what do the naysayers point to as the negatives and/or drawbcks of tymolized syrup treatment?

-fafrd


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Beekuk and Alpha I'd be pretty interested in the full rundown on how you treat with thymol.

I've started another thread for you, here it is:-

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=605811#post605811


----------



## TxFirefighter (Dec 14, 2010)

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/thymol.html

This will tell you everything you want to know about the makeup of Thymol.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks TxFirefighter, good info.

I'd still like to hear from those guys though, how they are actually using it.


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

It was nice out today so I checked mite levels in my recovered hive. Here is an update:

Natural mite drop:

Dec 30 - 5 in 24h
Dec 31 - 2 in 24h
Jan 4 - 6 in 96h

6-day natural mite drop: 13 (a little over 2/day average).

I have been assuming that the natural mite drop is related to the rate of mite emergence, so at an average of 2/mites per day dropping, I would assume the number of phoretic mites to be between 5-7 days worth of emerging mites (5-7 days phoretic before the mites re-enter the cells to breed again). Based on this assumption, an average drop rate of 2 mites per day ought to correspond to somewhere between 10-14 phoretic mites.

I also dusted with PS sugar today and the result was a 2h PS dust drop of 6 mites. Another 1 or 2 mites should drop due to the PS over the next 22h and assuming that the 24h PS dust drop corrsponds to roughly 50% of the phoretic mites, this wuld correspond to somewhere between 14-16 phoretic mites, so the two estimation techniques are pretty close and both indicate that the number of phoretic mites in the hive was in the range of 15 before I knocked them down with PS dusting in the range of 7-8. If all of these estimates are correct, I would expect another 2 phoretic mites to emerge overnight (as well as 2 falling naturally) so that the resulting number of phoretic mites tomorrow oght to be in the range of 9-10 and if I can dust again, I ought to see 4-5 mites drop from PS in 24h...

I'll keep monitoring on warm days and see how this assessment hold up, but my feeling right now is that I have largely saved this hive from mites and PMS and now I have other problems to worry about.

I basically have a nucs-worth of bees in a full deep and they are unable to keep the hive chamber warm enough in all of the rain and damp we are getting, so I am starting to get mold growing on the outer frames.

Tomorrow I plan to move this hive into a nuc box where hopefully they can continue to recover more effectively in a more manageable space.

Will continue to post updates as I have anything to report.

-fafrd


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

For those following my progress with this recovered hive, here is a quick follow-up:

I checked for more mites 24h after dusting on the 4th and there were none (so the 24h PS dusting drop on January 4th was a total of 6 mites).

I also dusted again on the 5th and the 24h PS dusting drop was 3 mites in the first 1 hour and another 1 mite in the subsequent 23 hourse (4 mites total in 24 hours post-dusting).

I've moved the cluster to a nuc box so hopefully they will be able to combat the mold more effectively.

I will continue to monitor natural mite fall but am going to hold off dusting any more for at least 3-4 days - dusting with PS to catch fewer than 5 mites does not see worth the trouble and I can probably catch the same number of mites total with less frequent dusting.

Every indication I have is that this hive/nuc now has fewe than 50 mites total (10-15 phoretic mites before they are dusted off) and about 26-35 foundress mites in capped brood cells (2-3 per day).

I still have work to do to save this hive given its reduced size, but I believe the severe fall 2010 mite infestation has been successfully beaten back. I will continue to monitor mite levels throuh naturalmite drop and follow-up with an update only when ther is anything significant o report.


-fafrd


----------



## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Alpha , do you have recipes for industrial amounts of syrup. I'm sure you must be mixing more than 5 gallons at a time if you have hundreds/thousands of hives.

Thanks

Jean-Marc


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Another nice sunny day in the Bay Area again today, so I took advantage to peak at the hive and dust.

I've continued to monitor matural mitefall on a daily basis. On the 7th, 8th and 9th, the 24 hour natural mitefall was 1, 1, 1 (3 mites total in 72 hours).

When I dusted on the 5th (4 days ago), the 24 dusting drop was 4 mites. Based on the assumption that dusting is about 50% efficient, this should mean that there were about 4 phoretic mites left after dusting on the 5th.

I read the 24 natural mite drop to be an indication of the new mites emerging in the past 24 hours (since about 50% of the emerging mites drop or die-and-drop soon after emergence), so based on the fact I had one mite dropping every day for the last three days, that ought to mean that I have added about three new phoretic mites over the last three days. Since the earlier natural mitefall counts averaged about 2 mies/day, it would probably be more conservative to assume that there have been between 1-2 new phoretic mites emerging per day (the 50% that did not drop or die), meaning 3-6 new phoretic mites since I last dusted on the 5th.

Some of the older phoretic mites have probably re-infested open brood cells - if we assume an average phoretic period or 6 days (average of 5 and 7), then about 2 out of the 4 older phoretic mites should have reentered bood cells between the 5th and the 9th. So my simple model would predict 4 - 2 old phoretic mites plus 3 - 6 newly-emerged phoretic mites for a total of between 5 to 8 phoretic mites in the hive when I dusted today.

The one hour dusting count was 6 mites today (as it was on January 4th, the first day I had dusted following a long period with no dusting), meaning there were about 12 phoretic mites before dusting (if the 50% dusting efficiency is accurate).

This is a bit higher than my prediction but still a very low mite level. Ether the dusting efficiency could be somewhat less than 50% or the 24h natural mitefall could be a bit less than 50% of the newly-emerging mites, but the bottom line is that this hive has something in the range of 12 phoretic mites even after 4 days of allowing mites to emerge without intervention - more or less confirming my view that the hive infestation has been reduced down to a level roughly 1-3 infested cells emerging per day.

My thriving 2-deep hive has been reduced to a 5-frame nuc, but I believe it is on the path to recovery and the mite infestation is now at a manageable level. As long as the natural 24h mite drop remains low (1-3 mites in 24h), I am going to hold off on any further dusting. If I see a spike in the 24h natural mite fall, I will dust on the next nice day to get a sense of the overall phoretic mite load.

Right now, if we assume 10,000-15,000 bees in this nuc, the infestation level based on an assessment of 12 phoretic mites is in the range of 0.1% - I think the colony is in good shape to get into the spring at least from a Varroa infestation level point of view (and if the can nt make it fro this relatively 'clean' starting point, I am going to have to question if this queens genetics are something I want to continue to prop up or if I should replace her with another feral strain from my apiary...).

-fafrd


----------



## Matt Little (Jan 13, 2010)

Hey thanks for this info fafrd, based on your findings I intend to trial intensive ps dusting leading into autumn this year, will see how it goes!


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Matt,

thanks for the encouragement 

We had an early spring-like day here in the Bay Area today - sunny and 70 degrees!

Have continued to monitor natural mitefall and took advantage of the today's good weather to dust. Here is a quick update:

4-day natural mitefall of 5 mites (average of 1.25 mites falling naturally per day)

1-hour dusting mitefall of 6 mites (implying that there were about 12 phoretic mites total before dusting)

I am heading out of town for a week on business, but I will leave the bottom boards in and check the natural mitefall upon my return. All signs so far point to the mites having been decimated and now down to 1-3 mites emerging per day...

-fafrd

p.s. Matt, when you do get around to trying intensive powdered sugar dusting, feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions or just want to chat...


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

A further update on the status of the hive I am attempting to save from advanced PMS, for those who are interested to know the outcome of this experiment.

I've been out for a week but checked the natural mitefall upon my return:

After a total of 7 days, the natural mitefall was 5 mites (average of less than 1 mite/day falling).

Since we had a nice sunny day upon my return, I decided to inspect and to dust as a reality check.

1-hr post dusting mitecount of 3 and another +1 after another 23 hours (4 mites total in 24 hours post dusting).

Every sign indicates that this hive has between 1-2 mites emerging per day and a phoretic mite count of about 8 mites.

The good news is that the mites have been virtually eliminated from the hive with nothing but powdered sugar dusting (from a starting 1-hour dusting mite drop of over 500 in late October to a 1-hour dusting mite drop of only 3 today, the mites have been reduced by more than 99%  ).

The bad news is that the hive continues to dwindle. It is now down to only two frames with brood and the brood pattern is about the size of a softball. Plenty of stores but there seem to be only enough bees to maintain a softball-sized cluster.

The brood pattern looks good and this is my first winter with this strain of bees, so I have no idea how they typically overwinter. The cluster is now much small than the three medium mating nucs I have attempted to overwinter (those three nucs have been sharing heat within a 3X3 medium queen castle and are now in medium supers stacked on double screen boards, each filling about 7 frames in a 10-frame medium super).

My plan is to monitor this soft-ball sized cluster to see if the brood successfully emerges. If so, all may be well even if this once mighty double-deep hive has been reduce to a large mating nuc by the severe mite infestation and advanced PMS it suffered last fall.

Since our weather has been in the 60's during the day and high 40's at night, if the cluster gets any smaller I will think about warming this nuc on top of one of my larger hives or boosting them with a frame or two of brood from one of my stronger hives.

The queen seems fine and the brood pattern seems fine, it just seems that there were apparwently only a very small population of bees that have been healthy enough to last through the winter... 

-fafrd


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

For those who have been following this sage, there was a break in the rain today, so I had a quick look at my salvaged nuc. I've left it on it's own to see how it would do, and I was pleasantly suprised by what I saw today. In four weeks, the brood cluster has grown from two frames with a soft-ball sized cluster of brood to two full frames of brood. The nuc is not yet full but there are four seams full of bees and the other frames are full of stores. We're supposed to have another couple weeks of 'cold' (40's -50's) and wet weather in front of us, so I will leave them in the nuc to get through this cold snap, but if things keep progressing as well as they have been for the next few weeks, I expect this salvaged hive to be back in a single deep by mid-March.

I think at this point I am ready to call my intensive-powdered-sugar-dusting-traatment of a hive severely infested by PMS a success !

Probably more work than it is worth, but this experience has proved to me that it is possible to treat for mites with nothing more than powdered sugar dusting. In the future, I plan to monitor mite levels more closely and intervene before PMS gets this severe in any of my hives. And if I ever treat with powdered sugar dusting again, I think I would keep the hive broodless over a 1-week period and knock out all of the phoretic mites with 5-days of dusting, rather than dusting over many more consecutive days in an attempt to salvage the brood...

-fafrd


----------



## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

I am interested in the cost of the icing sugar to save this hive by dusting. care to share. And the number of hours put into dusting each week or what have you.
Please and thanks


----------



## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

Honeyshack,

good questions and happy to share.

This is the first time I have tried powdered sugar dusting, so the effort needs to be amortized over the learning I gained...

That being said, here are the numbers:

POWDERED SUGAR: I probably dusted this hive about 30 times and get about 8 dustings out of a single 1-lb bag of powdered sugar costing $0.69. So let's call it $3 for the cost of the powdered sugar - not a big deal.

TIME: Using my canning-jar & screen shaker, I got my techniques down to below 10 minutes for a full dusting, including prep time, so 5 hours invested over 30 days. Would have been less expenesive to have allowed the hive to perish and purchased a new package, but I was learning (and I also now have a proven queen and a nuc that will be far more productive by early May than any April package I could have bought...).

The other thing I learned is that t is not worth making the effort to save the brood. If I ever try to save another hive using intensive powdered sugar dusting, here is how I would do it:

1/ remove all open and capped brood

2/ cage queen for duration of treatment period (4-7 days)

3/ dust 4-7 times until phoretic mites are reduced close to 0 (ideally 4-7 consecutive days)

4/ release queen and allow the colony to reestablish brood

The new powdered sugar blowers available on the market now can probably reduce the dusting time even further, but my guess is that it is not the cost of the sugar or the time needed for dusting that is problematic for a commercial operation, but the fact that this technique is not a 'one-shot' treatment - it needs to be applied 4-7 times consecutively to be effective (usually on 4-7 consecutive days).

One of the other things I have learned and which has astounded me is how quickly the colony recovers from being dusted. White bees everywhere, wings beating up a cloud of white dust, white bees jammed up around the entrance and powder sugar flying everywhere, it seems like the entire hive is drowning in a blizzard of white powder...

Close them up and 30 minutes, and from the observed activity coming and going at the entrance you would think that all is back to normal... Open the hive up an hour after dusting, and except for some build up of sugar on the outermost frames that they have not cleaned off yet, you are hard-pressed to find signs that the hive had been dusted just an hour earlier.

Next time I have an infested hive I am going to treat, I may try dustng them two times or even three times in a single day (without brood). If it is true that half the phoretic mites are knocked off with each dusting, this may allow a full treatment to be achieved in a matter of 2-3 days.

Happy to answer any additional questions you may have. For a relatively low-tech (and low-impact) mechanical treatment for severe mite infestation, I have been very impressed with how effective this technique can be. From my point of view, the greatest problem with the popular literature on this subject is that the frequency is wrong - dusting once a week for three weeks with brood present does nothing to combat a Varroa infestation and at most delays the continued worsening of the infestation by three weeks. To be effective, powdered sugar dusting with brood present needs to be applied daily (or at least every other day) over a 3-week period (impractical), or over a shorter period of 4-7 days without any brood present (or 2-3 days if dusting 2 or 3 times per day proves to be equally effective). 

-fafrd


----------



## Beetrucker74 (Oct 10, 2010)

Thank you for all the info please keep on posting the progres of this experiment. I am interested in how you continue PS treatment in future. I use Formic acid at his point with great results. Formic will evapoate in 2 weeks but the stuff can be wicked to handle and it will set brood back a week or so but I think that is part of the reason it works so well. I think you are right in thinking on not saving the brood in your method. But I like being able to apply formic then come back 3 weeks later and remove and at that time I could tell the treated hives werebouncing back in a big way. This was last fall Oct 10 to Nov 7. Last week we got up to 60 so check the girls to find all strong with lots of honey and didn't see any mites on any bees but I didn't pull any frames.


----------

