Watched a Zoom meeting last night put on by Auburn University Bee Lab that hosted Dr. Cameron Jack from the University of Florida Bee Lab. It is part of an educational series for beekeepers being sponsored by Auburn.
There are threads on this board regarding Cameron Jack's research released in January 2020 regarding OAV used in conjunction with brood breaks that had some fairly disappointing results for those of us that force brood breaks to treat with OAV. The study alluded to the theory that the legal limit of 1gram of OA per brood box may be insufficient to get an effective kill.
Last night, Jack revealed other trials that were being performed that were not covered in the January release, where hives were treated with 1g (legal dose), 2g and 4g with a control group that was not treated. Jack did not get deep into the details or numbers, but did show us a graph that shows a significant increased efficacy at higher doses and only nominal efficacy at the current legal dose. Jack also stated that there were little or no increased ill effects to bees, brood or honey in using the higher doses. He indicated that there was a current plan for Dr. Jack and Dr. Ellis (perhaps in collaboration with others) to build enough evidence to lobby the EPA for an increase in the legal amount of OA.
Of course, there was plenty of warnings and finger-wagging about "the label is the law" and do not let this information encourage off-label uses. I repeat them here in hopes we will not have pages of discussion about how we should all be adults and act in accordance with laws.
The fact that the OA legal dosage set by the EPA is far too low has long been suspected, if not known. Even Canada, which we supposedly based our EPA approval, has basically twice the legal dose as the US. If there is such thing as resistance to OAV (I do not believe there is) the most certain way to create and promote that resistance is by inoculating mites with sub-lethal dosages of OA.
I am hoping that Dr. Jack publishes another paper on this portion of his study. Anybody seen anything?
There are threads on this board regarding Cameron Jack's research released in January 2020 regarding OAV used in conjunction with brood breaks that had some fairly disappointing results for those of us that force brood breaks to treat with OAV. The study alluded to the theory that the legal limit of 1gram of OA per brood box may be insufficient to get an effective kill.
Last night, Jack revealed other trials that were being performed that were not covered in the January release, where hives were treated with 1g (legal dose), 2g and 4g with a control group that was not treated. Jack did not get deep into the details or numbers, but did show us a graph that shows a significant increased efficacy at higher doses and only nominal efficacy at the current legal dose. Jack also stated that there were little or no increased ill effects to bees, brood or honey in using the higher doses. He indicated that there was a current plan for Dr. Jack and Dr. Ellis (perhaps in collaboration with others) to build enough evidence to lobby the EPA for an increase in the legal amount of OA.
Of course, there was plenty of warnings and finger-wagging about "the label is the law" and do not let this information encourage off-label uses. I repeat them here in hopes we will not have pages of discussion about how we should all be adults and act in accordance with laws.
The fact that the OA legal dosage set by the EPA is far too low has long been suspected, if not known. Even Canada, which we supposedly based our EPA approval, has basically twice the legal dose as the US. If there is such thing as resistance to OAV (I do not believe there is) the most certain way to create and promote that resistance is by inoculating mites with sub-lethal dosages of OA.
I am hoping that Dr. Jack publishes another paper on this portion of his study. Anybody seen anything?