Mite Treatment Timing- Rethinking the standard advice

Winter isn't done here- there's still snow on the ground- but at least there are some nice sunny days. Having uninsulated hives, though wrapped in black cloth, really seems like a big plus- bees quickly are out when the hives get a little sun, cleansing and bringing in pollen.An insulated hive misses this around here. I can't really say its any better than just leaving the hives unwrapped- but there are other pluses. Probably something I will do from here on. I am fairly certain that all 35 hives I have are alive- though one at my friend Brian's up north (which had a bad case of CBPV )might not have made it. I don't know what that means- except to feel like I did something right last year-which was multipronged. Primarily, I amped up my seriousness about mite treatments. Secondly, made sure they had young queens, and were well fed. And for winter- I moved forward with what I always have done- cedar shavings on top, wrapped with weed mat (for second year- way better I think than the plastics that some wrap their hives with), and kept them fed not with dry sugar, but with very thick syrup, only as an insurance. Which I really think is only needed in 1 in 10 or fewer hives- but I don't have a good way of knowing which one will eat through stores quickly, and checking weight by lifting never seems reliable, so I just feed everyone. Most take it, some don't. Hard to say if that's because they already have food, or because there aren't enough to make a dent on it. This seems successful- though each year I adjust. The gain between doing all this work, and doing nothing (leaving hives "As-is") is probably pretty small- if any. But I still do it. Maybe next year will throw it all out and just focus on the basics plus mites. I've nearly got the new vaporizer perfected- which has taken an astonishing number of hours and testing and building. It basically ends up very simple- with about $25 worth of parts- that took a few hundred to figure out. But it seems solid, and reliable, though hasn't been through the ropes yet. I ordered more parts today to makes some for friends. I've also been working on trying to make an illustrated video showing an idea about a better way to treat for mites with OAV. Also many hours- mostly drawing larval, pupae, and imago images of bees, and trying to figure out how to show the idea. But along the way, realizing that's it's not that complicated to explain. Firstly- for those who know nothing about the topic- and to explain as briefly as I can- there is a mite which is devasting beekeeping, and hard to control. There are currently 4 or 5 chemical ways to do this, some less toxic than others. Oxalic acid is one way, and can be applied mixed in water, or as a vapor- in both cases it goes back to a powder, and when a mite walks on it, the mite dies (it gets in their feet). However, the acid can't go through a cell wall, and can only kill those mites that are outside of the capped larvae, and these are known as "phoretic" mites. On an average, only 20% are phoretic- so if you kill mites once- you really only kill a small percent. If a treatment last longer, than you kill more. So the suggestion for OA is to treat 3x, once every week. A worker bee takes about 20 days to go from egg to hatch, and this is know as a brood cycle, so the idea is to treat over this entire brood cycle. That's standard protocol. However, I think it might be wrong. Because in fact- it isn't the bees brood cycle that matters at all- its the mite's. And mites climb into the cell on the 8th or 9th day, and hatch out on the 20th. So like a week and half. If one were able to create a toxic environment for a week and half, then all the mites protected in cells would hatch, and if they hatched in such an environment, would die. So the question is- how long does a vapor treatment really last in a hive? My theory is that it is not as long as one would think- maybe days. Its a powder, and gets brushed off and grooomed off, and knocked off by traffic. So- I am thinking now- that for a serious treatment- every 3 or 4 days three times would possibly be way better than spacing out the treatments. I am not sure if this is a problem for the bees- but I don't get the sense that it is. Possibly for larva and open brood? I don't know- but have never seen dead brood pulled out of a hive after a treatment. So with that- I am going to test it out- do some counts, and use the new OAV invention. Lots to do!