Hello Tom and All,.
>
> Bob said >Most researchers will not touch this post .

Most researchers will talk one on one but hate to be quoted unless  they are
trying to get   information out.  I get private emails all the time with
information but with please do not say*I* told you.  I respect their wishes
or they would simply quit giving me information.  I share information on
Bee-L like we all do but need their input desperately to keep ahead of
todays beekeeping problems. My apiary inspector friends in Florida have
helped me greatly as things seem to happen in Florida first. Even those
friends ponder how I seem to know things going on in Florida before the news
is out. Hmmm.

> But what worries me about the entire varroa scene is that we are all
> fundamentally in the hands of the worst beekeeper.

Nothing new here Tom.  I have got a yard between two beekeepers which has
been giving me problems ever since those two took up beekeeping. Before then
the yard was one of my best
.
I once had a yard which always had AFB. Finnally a farmer told me about some
old deadouts . I went back in the woods and sure enough about twenty
abandoned hives loaded with AFB spores. Took a couple days to get everything
burned but no more problems.

Tom wrote:
If a beekeeper chooses to  take shortcuts and thereby causes resistant mites
to appear sooner rather  than later then that is it.

If you look back through the posts I have done on Bee-L you will see I have
said little about the use of fluvalinate other than Apistan. Did not effect
me directly.
The illegal use of 1% coumaphos is effecting us all.  Bayer is in production
of one million checkmite strips.  Used wisely we might get far enough down
the varroa road we can all get other measures in place before widespread
resistance BUT as Tom points out one beekeeper has already created a huge
amount of coumaphos  resistant varroa with his acts AND spread those mites
to three different areas. .

> The replies to my post convince me at any rate, that the incremental
> chemical approach to varroa leads nowhere.

Pollination needs out weigh all other uses for the honeybee in the U.S..
Chemicals have done  exactly what Dr. shiminuki and others have said they
would 15-20 years ago.     Fill the void till research provides us with a
bee which will survive varroa. Chemicals have kept the commercial  hives in
the U.S. alive. I believe without chemicals being used the honeybee would
only exist in areas of the world  without varroa and in a few areas where
bees seem to tolerate varroa.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison