Your 100% on the interaction with the Apiguard which in this instance was poor as I had trouble getting the bees to touch it, for interest looking at my notes temperature was average 20 deg C for the weeks of treatment. In the end I mixed the remains of each tin and spread on cardboard which the bees chewed and dropped through the hive to be found as shavings on the inspection board. In the future if I see little interaction then I will be removing and trying something else.NigelP wrote:Agree with Jim on this one. I never use Apiguard as I'm treating hives from mid-Sept and it's way to cold to work efficiently up here. I vape with a sublimox and generally 3 to 4 vapes at 5 day intervals works well for the majority of hives. Some are more difficult (and I don't know why) and just continue to drop large quantities of mites. Possibly robbing of feral colonies? I would have said inefficiency of vaping, but the sublimox fills the whole hive (double brood) with vapour and the 3 day mite drops can be enormous.
Worst case ended up with 10 vapes to get 3 day drops into single figures. No apparent damage to colony overall.
It's the 5 day interval you need to work at, as 7 days is too long and will allow emerged mites to re-enter cells.
I've now adopted a 4 vapes and you're out....or rather you are now on Apivar strips if you are still dropping a large numbers of mites.