Hi Peter,
      Who was the author on this?  Isn't this the journal where Wu from Harvard Public Health published his neonic dabblings?

Hi Kristina,
      Now, that is true, they did publish his stuff, but I don't think that means that whatever they publish must be junk. The paper in question:

The susceptibility of Varroa destructor against oxalic acid: a study case

Matías D. MAGGI1,2, Natalia DAMIANI1,2, Sergio R. RUFFINENGO3, María C. BRASESCO1,2, Nicolás SZAWARSKI1, Giulia MITTON1,2, Fernando MARIANI4, Diana SAMMATARO5, Silvina QUINTANA1,2,6, Martín J. EGUARAS1,2 

1 Centro de Investigación en Abejas Sociales (Laboratorio de Artrópodos), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2 CONICET, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Rivadavia, Buenos Aires, Argentina 
3 Cátedra de Apicultura, Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Balcarce, Buenos Aires, Argentina
4 Beekeeping consultant, Victoria, Entre Ríos, Argentina
5 USDA ARS, Carl Hayden Honey Bee Research Center, Tucson, Arizona, USA
6 Laboratorio de Biología Molecular, Fares Taie Instituto de Análisis, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

I thought the research was interesting, even though I have never used oxalic acid. The question has to do with the development of resistance, that old bugbear which thwarts our efforts to control pests

> The results reported here suggest that the Varroa population exposed during 8 successive years to oxalic acid treatments remains susceptible to this acid.

They previously published work on acaricide resistance in "Parasitology Research" October 2010:

> In Argentina, Varroa destructor resistance to coumaphos has been previously reported.  At present, high infestation levels of V. destructor are being detected in colonies of Apis mellifera after treatment with amitraz. These results are the first report of resistance to amitraz in V. destructor in Argentina and extend the knowledge according to the status of acaricides resistance in the country.

and members of the team published recently in Journal of Apicultural Research, Volume 55, 2016:

> Different treatments with systemic acaricides are applied to control, but due to the intensive use of these chemicals, resistance to organophosphates and pyrethroids has developed worldwide. Most of the resistance episodes have been registered for fluvalinate, and only in a few cases has flumethrin resistance been reported. These results are the first report of resistance to flumethrin in V. destructor in Uruguay, and extend the knowledge of acaricide resistance in the country.

These papers add to the long list of records of mite resistance to chemicals, and provide evidence that varroa has not developed resistance to oxalic acid -- experts predicted it would not, due to the essentially mechanical mode of action.

PLB

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