>the notion that natural substances are somehow safe and synthetic ones
arent is plainly false

I'm not on that bandwagon -- strychnine, cyanide, and botulinum toxin being
good examples of extremely toxic "natural" chemicals.
The reason that we stick to thymol, formic, and oxalic is that at the
levels used, they are generally recognized as safe, and part of a "natural"
diet, so both bees and humans have had a long time to evolve to deal with
them.
And other than thymol, they leave little or no residues in the combs,
which is the main reason that we use them, since we sell our beeswax to
people who make salves, etc.

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
530 277 4450
ScientificBeekeeping.com


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