>We have been through a few synthetics that were magic bullets.  How many
more are there? Who is looking seriously? --

I'm catching up on email, and missed Allen's eruption!

There are plenty looking seriously.  As far as synthetics, there are
issues.  You need to find something that doesn't leave residues in either
honey or wax, which rules out most miticides.  Then if a new miticide is
also in a product that is available off the shelf in any formulation,
beekeepers will simply use off label, so there is no incentive for a
company to get the product registered for bee hives.

To answer your question directly, Mann Lake, for one has indeed been
looking diligently, and trying to bring two synthetic products to market
for some time.  It is a difficult, slow slog, with the possibility of the
product falling on its face, as did fenpyroximate (Hivastan), and Sucracide
(sucrose octanoate).  ARS is also looking.

As Pete pointed out, there is serious research being pursued to develop an
RNAi product against varroa--Monsanto has just started to throw money at it.

The fungi look promising, but delivery is the sticking point, and they
would need to be applied frequently, since once the host is gone, they
can't propagate.

No one has found viruses or other pathogens for biocontrol of varroa.

What they have found is that formic, oxalic, and thymol work quite well.
 Coupled with resistant stock, mite management is not that difficult.  I
was just speaking to a commercial operator with 25,000 hives who uses only
a single treatment of thymol each year by running Russian stock.

My sons and I run 1000 hives commercially and haven't used a synthetic for
over a decade, simply because it is cheaper and less trouble to work with
the approved miticides.  It takes us less time, and costs less than Apistan
did.  And Apistan was a wonderful silver bullet.  I don't use the
synthetics for practical reasons, not idealistic.  After being burned twice
when synthetics suddenly failed due to mite resistance, I was done with
them!  And that was before we learned about comb contamination.

So in answer to your question, researchers and companies have not given up
in the search for anti varroa products.  It would help if we rephrased the
question to the real problem, which is virus management.  The main problem
with varroa is that it is a vector of viruses.  What we are really looking
at is vector management.  And that is why the "silver bullet" miticides
will never work again as they used to, with once a year treatments being
enough.

For some old dogs, it is hard to learn new tricks.  For others, mite
management is more of a nuisance than a major problem.

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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