How to rid bees of mites fast easy cheap 100% mite kill please share this - YouTube

[BETSY TRUE]

Is this safe for the bees with the alcohol? And is the dose controllable?



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=timAIlH_1OQ


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[Matt H]

Given that it's not approved nor have there been any scientific tests on it, I wouldn't touch it.  People have been kicking it around beesource for a while (link below for one discussion, there are many.  How does this guy know it's 100% kill rate that he claims?  The accepted method for determining the effecancy of a treatment is to follow up a treatment with an apivar treatment using a sticky board.  

Randy Oliver posted an update on this fogging method.  A retired chemist Dick Cryberg tried it with water instead of ethanol and had zero success rate.  Additionally he mentions that the ethanol could react with oxalic acid at the elevated temperatures to form ethyl formate.  While this is possible, it is unlikely as the reaction of ethyl formate with water will be favored (producing formic acid and ethanol).  So effectively one may be dosing as much or more formic acid using this method than oxalic method.

The take home is not a lot is known.  Even if it does work, hot/flaming fogger+ flammable ethanol vapors in an enclosed space + bees wax seems to be a recipe for disaster.

If anyone has any good reference on the effect of sub-lethal doses of ethanol on bees, I'd love to read it.  

Randy Oliver link (yes, the title says dribble but they discuss the fogging):

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-dribble-tips/

Beesource Discussion link:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?340698-Everclear-190-proof-for-OAV-treatment

[marvin]

I kinda have the same reaction to just about all mite treatments i.e. is the dose controllable?  Or more specifically, what the h&%$ is the dose?  Whether you use MAQS, or oxalic, or anything else, you never really control the dose.  WIth fumigants, ambient temperature plays a big role.  WIth vaporizers, there's the question of vaporizing versus thermal breakdown.  With dribble OA or thymol gels, are the bees REALLY passing it around the hive to the degree necessary for control?  You never can be confident.  Which is why a lot of people maybe repeat the process unnecessarily to the detriment of the hive's health.  I have no solution to this question.  I try not to jump on the newest anti-mite bandwagon (and there is a new one annually).  I tend to look for something with a longer term track record.  There's going to be a lot of OA success and horror stories in the next few years.   We'll have to glean what we can from the success and the wreckage.  

On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 8:59:15 PM UTC-6, Betsy True wrote: