Scott, I use vapourizing (fogging) for my bees, excellent, high levels of mite death that continue on for quite some time. I know, I kept track of mite counts last fall constantly, for about a month, still mite death showing on the sticky boards at that last count, then I gave up, as winter was here. I know that it works for a prolonged period of time. I vapourized again about a month ago. I need to do it again. I saw a mite on a bee when working the colonies recently. I killed that bee. Not that it helped, but it might have prevented 5 mites from emerging from a cell, hee, hee.
The best time to do any kind of fogging/vapourizing is when most of the bees are home. That would be the morning I would say. Not night time, for some reason I feel it would be more effective during the daytime, I don't know why I feel this but I do. It is for surely that all the bees would be home before they begin to forage, evening, well, I like lots of daylight to see what I am doing.
When I vapourize, I close off the bottom entrance and the top entrance while I am fogging. I use thick foam strips that I stuff in to keep the vapour in for that time. Then I insert the fogger base that holds the chemical and attach the battery and leave it going for about one minute, this vapourizes within that time. I leave the hive closed up for about 10 minutes and then open it up by removing these foam strips. Each time after I have evaporated the chemical, I cool down the basin of the vapourizer with a cool cloth so the chemical does not get too hot before I activate the new set of crystals I had put in the holder. Yes, vapourizing can be done any time of the year, fast, simple, effective. Beautiful day, awesome day, Cindi
Topic: Treating for Varroa (Read 2766 times)