> If one is going to start counting dead hives of 
> "alternative" beekeepers, what does one say 
> about the very large, repeated public losses 
> of beekeepers like Dave Hackenburg and Jim Doane?

One is going to say what so many have said - the obvious. Some beekeepers
grew beyond their ability to adequately manage, and that the line between
"CCD" and "PPB" is in many cases, entirely subjective.  One prolific blogger
has written down what has often been said, that Tony Jadczak, Maine
Apiarist, told Dave "he would soon have a massive bee losses his varroa was
badly out of control.  Shortly after that warning in Maine and after moving
the bees to Florida, Dave had a huge loss and screamed bloody murder to the
press."  

Jim Doane is merely retiring, but apparently continues to hold out hope for
some sort of beekeeper class-action suit against a deep-pockets defendant,
so he shames himself in a very public manner, calling it "bankruptcy" and
blaming pesticides.  Funny how all the other large operations in NY State
don't seem to have the same problem.

> What does one say about successful commercial 
> operations that rely on illegal shop towel treatments? 

Would you like to name any specific operations?  
But with the status of Oxalic Acid in a legal limbo, and so many differences
of opinion on the "proper dose" for Formic acid, I am not sure that there
would be any "enforcement" of USA use of either acid in any form, even
"homebrew show-towel" applications.  I had expected an IR-4 path for oxalic,
given all the work that was done at U NE (Marion Ellis), but despite
positive-sounding statememts from ABF and AHPA, I don't think anyone has
actually funded the process, or named a manager to shepherd the process
through IR-4.  Heck, if Steve Forrest could do it alone for the first Thymol
product to be sold in the USA, it should be easy for the two "national"
groups.

>  ...is it not "snake oil" for such beekeepers to tell 
> others that it isn't hard to keep bees alive as long 
> as one keeps the mites under control...yet they 
> can't demonstrate it being done within the law?

Well, I don't know of anyone saying that keeping mites under control is
"easy", but there are quite a few people doing it with nothing more than the
simple and legal use of formic acid pads, Thymol, Apistan, or even (shudder)
Check-Mite, all bought from beekeeping supply houses.  

After treatment, if one is sufficiently isolated, or sufficiently lucky,
one's hives do not rob out weak and dying neglected hives, and do not
reinfest themselves.  Those hives that do get reinfested may need multiple
passes at treatment.  I think Randy recently claimed he had to do 3 or 4
passes at "fall mite treatment" to get it his mite counts down.  The
take-away message here is that it really does not matter what mite control
you use, they all work well if (and only if) you follow through and test the
actual result of your treatment effort.  Then, when your mite count goes
back up later, you can stop blaming the mite treatment for being infective,
and start blaming neighboring "nuisance beekeepers" as Eric Mussen calls
them, for being infective.

> Given that aproximately 1% of the beekeepers 
> manage 99% of the hives 

Naw, 70% or 80% I might buy, but not 99%.  CCD flooded the novice classes.
The supply houses should richly fund the novice classes, as all the decent
instructors are volunteers, charging little or nothing, and the supply
houses make money hand over fist.

> what do we blame the high losses industry wide on?  

Invasive species of pests, pathogens, and diseases.  But even "high losses"
are far better than the 100% losses taken by any of the "leave alone"
beekeepers who are not sufficiently isolated to breed a less virulent local
population of mites through letting hives die for several years in a row.
It is so strange moving between beekeepers and any other group of
agricultural producers.  Other ag producers hang on the every word of their
extension rep, the local land-grant university, the USDA, anyone with an
improvement they might use.  Beekeepers stubbornly deny science, twist the
words they read in papers to suit their own agenda, and split off into
factional groups built around dogma and obscure practices that are anything
but mainstream.  What is blamed depends upon the agenda of the beekeeper
doing the blaming.

So, to conjugate, my losses are "tolerable", your losses are "high", his
losses are "endangering his pollination contracts", their losses are "their
own darn fault, pure PPB".  

(The rap group "Naughty By Nature" should tweak some lyrics, and rap "You
down with PPB?  You know me..."  even google knows how obvious this lyric
change should be.)

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