The whole issue of resistance got me thinking so ran a short excel
program that differentiated between 99% mite kill and 98%. I started
with an arbitrary mite count of 3000 at the time of application and
allowed for a 10x doubling of the mite population until the next
treatment.

Of interest, the 6 year mite levels for the 98% kill were the same as
the 9 1/2 year level for 99%. This seems to confirm the experience of
most of us who saw resistance after 10 years instead of 6.

So the extra 1% kill allows 4 more years of treatment. So you actually
want to kill as many mites as possible instead of allowing for
slightly less as that will lead to faster resistance. I was amazed at
what a 1% difference made.

Also interesting is if you treat more often, you also develop
resistance faster. Both of these math exercises seem to confirm what
has been observed with Apistan.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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