Unfortunately, other than just a few afternoons of brief hot sun here and there this September has been overall cool, cloudy, rain, snow. Not good weather for going into hives to do bee work. The times that the sky did open up it got nice and warm with bright sun beating down on the dark brown boxes. Am sure they got warm enough for the thymol to work its magic as could sure smell it and the bees tended to storm out for fresh air.
Yesterday I hoped to get some data. It was nice and sunny but unfortunately was just too cold to crack into any hives, being just above freezing. All I could do is lift covers for a peak and tip hives to look at bottom boards. Visually everyone in there are very healthy in appearance and activity. The bottom boards are clean, very little debris, they've done a good job of sweeping out the trash and the dead.
I cannot do any washes to get mite counts in these conditions to say if this stuff definitively works or not, or what the change in numbers are. Therefore I have to fall back on the last counts which were already low and just use sensory inputs and my experience to assess what is current status. ... They all look great. The bees are nicely clustered and actively organizing the nests. They smell nice of thyme, scrumptious pollen patties, fresh baby bees, and ripening syrup. The nest is large, robust, is warm and uniform. The hives are up to weight on stores. Bunch of happy buzzy fuzzy cozy bees. They are transitioned into winter mode.
I think this is queue that it is time to just get on with getting them wrapped for winter. Daytime highs now barely reach 4 deg C and overnight lows are -5 deg C. The 2018 Season is done here. Nothing left for me to do but tuck them in and go drink hot cocoa. The rest is up to the bees now until April 2019.