While it is technically true that the EPA and FDA do not consider efficacy in their approval process for miticides and pesticides, this is a misleading statement, as there is a little more "consumer protection" that the caveat emptor environment claimed.  Both EPA and USDA do require efficacy studies in areas where there has been prior problems, and we should be thankful that they have not chosen to add that burden to the pile o' paperwork required to get a new bee product approved (currently estimated at 1.5 inconveniently large 55-foot tractor trailer loads of paper). 

While there have been some dud products introduced, and significant stumbling and revisions on dosages on otherwise known-effective substances (like formic acid extended release), the efficacy issue has not been enough of a problem to warrant the level of efficacy testing that would be required for a skin-applied mosquito repellent.

But it's NOT at all as bad as "that's up to the buyer to determine", nowhere near - we have a lot of guys who make their living selling bee supplies. Chris Cripps DVM of Betterbee recently posted asking for input on the Dylan product, but none of the supply houses ever want to buy a pallet of stuff that turns out to be a flop, so they do quite a bit of testing before they order that pallet.  Steve Forrest of Brushy Mountain was always testing and trying new things, and only a few of them ever made it into his catalog, 'nuff said.

Do the supply houses protect the beekeeper 100% from "woo" and "sturm und drang"?  No, they sell "small cell foundation", the yoni eggs of beekeeping.  But they only sell it because beekeepers asked for it in increasingly shrill tones, so there was "strong beekeeper demand", just like there was strong beekeeper demand for Burgess Foggers some time ago (don't get me started on a rant...).

Eventually, beekeeper demand can be a good gauge of efficacy, as long as one ignores the beekeepers chasing the newest brightest shiniest object that just entered their field of view, and distracts them from the basics of monitoring the things that no one has actually EVER fixed with a product that truly irradicates whatever scourge of bees is the tale of woe du jour.

I'll say it one more time - "Treatments Are Legion, Cures Are Legends."

No one seems to grasp this.

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