View Full Version : Mite control using Minerial Oil??
raosmun
10-21-2009, 07:35 AM
Interesting read at www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/mineral_oil.htm . Does anyone have experience using an insect-foger with food grade minerial oil as noted in the read for mite control??
Dr. Pedro Rodriguez did some studies and they are documented. Here is a recipe from an old Beesource thread.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204952
http://www.harriscountybeekeepers.org/FGMOWidenAlternativesForHoneyBeeParasiteControl.pd f
I did fogging of FGMO with thymol a couple of years ago for me it did not keep the mite count down, I still had to treat in the fall. I also made the thymol cords but never got around to applying them to see if they worked.
chillardbee
10-21-2009, 12:22 PM
I know someone who had tried it on his colonies. I don't know if the mites in his colonies had already done irrepairable damage or if other reasons played effect to his disaster, but he pretty much lost everything he had and no longer keeps bees.
If you have a system thats tried and true, why would you not continue using that system. I've often seen beeks try something new because they took someone elses word as gosple truth and loosing over half their hives through the winter and with the remainder in a very weak state. in the very least, try it on some hives first, you could even mix and match your treatments as part of you IPM.
I've never tried the mineral oil and maybe I should on a few hives just to see if it does work because if it does, then thats another weapon to the arsenal of treatments to fight the mites with.
There is nothing wrong with trying it but keep a close watch on the mite count. My mite count went up in the fall after using it during the summer, but maybe it will work for someone else. Its well documented so it should not harm your bees. Do a search on this forum and you will find more info, especially on the brand of fogger to buy.
The fogging that Dr. R did was FGMO with thymol, thymol is what is used in Apiguard and Api-life Var so it does kill mites. The FGMO is just a different delivery system.
Alex Cantacuzene
10-21-2009, 07:14 PM
Well, my response got wiped out and I don't know why
Alex Cantacuzene
10-24-2009, 06:06 AM
Well, here we try again. We have used Mineral Oil from one of the large dept stores in a Burgess fogger mixed with Thymol as per instructions from Dr. Rodriguez for a few years. This year has been amazing and I hate to talk about it (Murphy's law you know....) as we had very few varroa. I have to say that our hives are on 18" high single pipe stands, have SBB and a white Formica slide to check for varroa. The slides get coated with Mineral Oil and we find all kinds of things, including the center of activity by watching the concentration of wax droppings. The fogger was purchased new, that means there was never any insecticide in the tank which I think is very important. We used to fog every week last year as we had varroa counts of 30 to 50 in 24 hours. This year, for some unexplained reason, we have drops of two or three in that time so we fogged very little.
It has to be understood that fogging as suggested by the good doctor is no "Silver Bullet" and I think that it can only be seen as a controlling tool. We do respect all the research that Dr. Rodriguez has done and we use his formulas for fogging with good results. That they are the only reason for our low counts we cannot say but are thankfully satisfied.
There have been comments of malfunction of the fogger at times but ours always works great, all it takes is patience when lighting it and letting it do its thing. In other words, let it get hot and it will start pushing smoke out by itself before pumping it heavily.
Well I hope this helps, sorry for being long winded. Take care and have fun