In the August issue of Bee Culture we read:

Our current agricultural system is so broken and
bankrupt that, without the subsidies it receives from the
world's governments, it would collapse astonishingly fast.
These subsidies are both direct agricultural subsidies and
indirect subsidies that artificially deflate the cost of diesel
fuel, farm chemicals, and artificial fertilizers among other
things. Thankfully in the world of beekeeping numerous
alternatives to the toxic pesticides Apivar, Apistan, and
Checkmite are readily available and affordable. This
year, rather than use a toxic miticide strip in your hives,
I invite you to consider using one of the highly effective
essential oil-based products: Api Life VAR or ApiGuard;
or the formic acid based Mite Away Quick Strip (MAQS),
and give our pollinators, our great grand children , and
your bees a break!

Ross Conrad, writing in Bee Culture

Comment:
These latter chemicals are hardly benign. 

Thymol is the chief constituent in the fumigants
Apilife Var (tablets) and Apiguard (gel)
Essential oil-based varroacides were
exempted from extensive testing for EPA registration
because they are common food additives
and “generally recognized as safe” for
human consumption (Quarles, 1996). However,
monoterpenoids such as thymol andmenthol
may not necessarily be safe for honey
bees, since these compounds play a role in
plants as broad spectrum pesticides (Isman,
2006). Indeed, thymol and menthol were
found to be among the most toxic of all terpenoids
tested when applied to honey bees
as a fumigant (Ellis and Baxendale, 1997).
These monoterpenoids likely kill Varroa by
binding to octopamine (Enan, 2001) or GABA
receptors (Priestley et al., 2003). Despite being
naturally derived, these compounds may
harm honey bees: thymol treatment can induce
brood removal (Marchetti and Barbattini,
1984; Floris et al., 2004) and may result in
increased queen mortality (Whittington et al.,
2000). 

Formic acid
can harm honey bees by reducing worker
longevity (Underwood and Currie, 2003) and
harming brood survival (Fries, 1991).

Repeated treatment of colonies with
oxalic acid can result in higher queenmortality
and a reduction in the amount of sealed brood
(Higes et al., 1999). The midguts of honey
bees fed oxalic acid in sugar water exhibited
an elevated level of cell death (Gregorc and
Smodisskerl, 2007), though in field conditions
bees will generally avoid consuming syrup
with oxalic acid (Aliano and Ellis, 2008).

Pesticides and honey bee toxicity – USA*
Reed M. Johnson, Marion D. Ellis, Christopher A. Mullin, Maryann Frazier
Apidologie 41 (2010) 312–331 Available online

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