Been there, done that. The best advice I can give you is to be open minded when evaluating your success. Too many people want something like mineral oil to be the answer and unconsiously taint their results.
Being a newbee, it will be difficult for you to determine a safe varroa population verse a catastrophic level. Be extremely cautious/observant in the late fall, varroa can become an epidemic rather quickly then.
I am not trying to say mineral oil does not have merit, just that it doesn't work in all situations and for everyone. Yes there are people that claim great success, but there are also many that have failed miserably. Some try to share their failures, but often the lash back by pro-mineral oil folks cause most of us to just keep quite and move on.
I started using mineral oil many years ago when Dr. Pedro's method of application was an inverted bottle of mineral oil with a pipe cleaner wick in the entrance (similar to a boardman feeder). I progressed through all the "improved" methods of application right up to the fogging every two weeks. For the 5 or so years I tried mineral oil, my loss continued to be 60% or better. It was finally becoming too costly and I gave up and moved on to better "organic" methods (at least better for my situation).
Some things to ponder. If fogging works, why the cord? If cord works, why the fogging? If mineral oil works, why the thymol? It just seems like every year or so a "new" improvement is discovered.
Once again, I'm not an anti-mineral oil person, just adivising you to be open minded about it and don't think it is the holy grail.