One fallacy surprisingly widespread is that if no mechanism is
suggested for a phenomenon then the alleged process cannot occur.  This
error of reasoning has been evident on this list wo some alleged
varroacides.
        Ask yourself: can mammals be put into a temporary deep sleep so
that drastic surgery becomes painless?  I know they can, because it's been
done on me several times; and those who have had no such experience will, I
trust, concede there exist genuine general anaesthetics.  These chemicals
got allowed in medicine because they did work (and no side-effects had been
noticed), when nobody had any idea  HOW  they worked.  My scientific hero
Linus Pauling made some shrewd but very vague suggestions a few decades
ago; but it was still the case when I was a medical-school teacher that no
mechanism was suggested for general anaesthesia.  But nobody was suggesting
anaesthetics should be banned because we didn't know how they worked.
        Similarly, the question of whether varroa gets hammered by sugar
rolls, jelly rolls, oil foggers, vinegar foggers, a suspiciously
low-volatility organic acid, even less volatile salts, fluorinated
synthetic pesticides, or other treatment, is a question for empirical
testing, quite aside from whether any mechanism has been proposed.  I
deplore the failure of those milking the public purse on the basis of the
varroa invasion to initiate the urgent efficacy testing deserved by some of
these methods; but the lack of knowledge on how they might work is not one
of my reasons.
        True, it is comforting to have a mechanism in mind.  Research is
liable to be more efficient if on some theoretical framework.  But it is
not essential.  People should stop saying 'you dunno how it works so you
can't claim that it does work'.
        (I am well aware that this reasoning applies also to alleged
phenomena such as telepathy.  That is fine by me.)

        While I'm holding forth on scientific method, let me add that the
functions of the drones in the hive are so very little known that drastic
interference with their numbers is in my opinion unjustified.   Sacrificing
any large minority of drones as a kind of varroa sink looks to me dubious.

R




-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878   Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
                (9) 524 2949