ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
List archive
- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: Robert King <robk2.mindspring.com AT gmail.com>
- Cc: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment
- Date: Sun, 21 May 2017 15:09:49 -0400
Robert, Way back then, all sorts of things were desperately being tried to combat mites because the one treatment that beekeepers had, Apistan (fluvalinate), was quickly showing undesirable aspects to its profile. For example, at one point burning sumac leaves was considered the next wonder treatment. A couple of important quotes from the article that should not be overlooked: "After 30 seconds, smoke from the grapefruit leaves knocked down 90 to 95 percent of the mites in the cage test." Thirty seconds of smoke is a heck of an exposure for honey bees. I would expect absconding to be a real risk in a real-world test. In a cage test, they cannot abscond. "With grapefruit leaves, however, few of the mites are killed. Most simply fall off the bees." So this suggests the treatment isn't really all that powerful... or effective. If I remember correctly, folks found that any "gummy" type leaves would produce the same effect (sumac, tobacco, etc.). "We're not yet telling beekeepers to use these methods for controlling varroa mites," says Eischen. "We're using these experiments to try to identify and isolate the chemicals that act as miticides." And they never did end up telling beekeepers to use these methods because they haven't proven effective. And the chemicals in grapefruit leaves must not have panned out... unless perhaps they led to formic acid, thymol or oxalic acid treatments. I don't feel a need to repeat Dr. Eischen's experiments that didn't end up going anywhere... he has already done that. Furthermore, any "flash treatment" -- a one-shot-deal that only gets at the phoretic mites at that moment -- is greatly inferior to the way that ApiGuard, ApiLife Var, MiteAway Quick Strips and ApiVar work. If you are interested in highly impressive one-shot results (as good as Eischen's grapefruit smoke), then all you need is Oxalic Acid, which is well tested, labeled for control of Varroa mites (with clear easy-to-follow directions) and cheap. It is very interesting to read historical articles like this to gain an appreciation of the chronology of the development of today's mite treatments. I've seen many come and go in the short time I've been beekeeping (ApiLife Var had just come on the market as a restricted product [licensed applicator only] when I first got bees). Sucrocide, for example, was a great idea, it just wasn't nearly as good an idea as the things that came along and pushed it into obscurity. Grapefruit smoke is in the same category. Randall On 5/21/2017 12:07 PM, Robert King
wrote:
D9E3F27E-94CE-4959-A0FE-289AD2BA6965 AT gmail.com"> |
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[ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
John Rintoul, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Randall Austin, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Randall Austin, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
- Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment, Randall Austin, 05/21/2017
- Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment, Robert King, 05/22/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Randall Austin, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Randall Austin, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
Robert King, 05/21/2017
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Re: [ocba] interesting mite treatment,
John Rintoul, 05/21/2017
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