General note on chemicals: I do not endorse or advise on chemical treatments, as I am not qualified to do so and there may be dangers beyond my control. New products may be introduced or existing ones withdrawn, so it is difficult to keep up with current information on a website such as this. As many of the chemical pages were generated by Dave Cushman, I am leaving the content mainly as left by Dave for historical purposes only, which may mean information is out of date and unreliable. The user should seek guidance from other sources and satisfy themselves regarding safety and legality.

Acarine disease (Acarapis Woodii) was thought to have been the cause of the "Isle of Wight Disease", but that has now been shown to be highly unlikely. At one stage, acarine was considered to be a major threat to honey bees and a great deal of time and effort was spent on studying it and finding treatments. One of the most successful was a treatment called Frow Mixture that was formulated by Mr R.W.Frow.

When I started beekeeping in 1963, many of the beekeepers used Frow Mixture and the appliance dealers sold it in small sealed brown glass bottles. Many older books gave the recipe, so beekeepers could make their own. It is now no longer available and illegal to use in the U.K.

I think Mr Frow and his experiments are quite interesting, with details written by Alan Campion and displayed on Roger Parsons World of Richard Watson Frow. I am grateful to Roger Parsons for allowing me to link to his website.

Roger Patterson.

Page created 26/09/2015

Page updated 13/12/2022