Hello All,
The list gets a brief glimpse into the mind of Dann Purvis! Drawn into
posting by a subject dear to his heart. Dann is an example of private
beekeeping research. His only agenda to help a troubled industry!

Dann comes from an IBM  and military background.

I agree completely with his posting. The commercial beekeeping industry of
the world is propped up by chemicals. If the industry had the choices in the
late 80's & early 90's we have got today then perhaps the industry would
have made better choices.

If the list goes back to my statements back then I urged the industry not to
follow the lead of Europe. Sadly the industry did
embrace the chemical *quick fix* and make the same mistakes as our European
friends. In fact some would say make more serious mistakes by only riding
one chemical treatment at a time instead of at the very least alternating
treatments.

 I will say that Dann & I are amazed at the lack of interest in queen
producers to embrace a varroa tolerant bee and both national groups to not
try and encourage their members to get off the chemical treadmill instead of
making resolutions to find and register new chemicals.

Taking Dann's comments further there are what our researchers call "super
mites". They are the product of chemical treatments gone bad! All varroa are
not equal! Pick up some of these varroa and none of our current chemical
methods provide a decent control. The warning signs are all over the *other*
bee list. Story after story of beekeepers using formic & OA etc. and still
seeing high varroa loads. Checkmite (coumaphos) was a big killer of varroa
at first but look how fast "super mites " became  resistant. I guess I might
as well be the first to say on a public forum that I have heard direct
reports of "super varroa" not being killed by OA & formic!

The answer lies in the varroa tolerant bee , clean comb and stopping
creating super mites by chemical treatments!

Thanks to Dann Purvis for sharing his views on the subject. Views we both
share and discuss by phone frequently!

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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