It is difficult for me to imagine how anyone who has used these products 
could really believe that thymol or formic acid are not harmful to 
bees.  Thymol kills at least half the brood in most hives and formic 
acid kills a bunch of the queens.  It breaks my heart to do this to my 
bees.  I just use the products because I have to in order to stay in 
business without using an illegal product in my hives.

In October I applied apiguard, terramycin, and fumigillin-b all on the 
same day.  This was because my bees had mites, european foulbrood, and 
nosema all at the same time.  I would not have used the products if I 
did not need to, as I am sure all are quite harmful to my hives.  So did 
it work?  My bees still have mites, foulbrood and nosema just like 
everyone else.  But I have only lost about 5 hives out of over 300.  On 
the other hand, I am sure I would have lost 90% of my bees by now had I 
skipped the mite treatment.  It is all about cost vs. benefit, and the 
so-called natural miticides are the only effective legal treatments on 
the market right now.

--Jeremy Rose
San Luis Obispo, CA

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