Peter said:

>> Most conscientious beekeepers already abandoned the use of
>> fluvalinate and coumaphos, even before they were implicated 
>> by Penn State. 

MaryAnn Fraiser's findings clearly conflict with any claim
that fluvalinate and coumaphos have been "abandoned".  Both
are being found at levels that indicate ongoing use.

And while I agree that coumaphos was a very desperate measure, 
a bad idea from the get-go, the actual conscientious beekeepers 
have been able to use Apistan without problems all along, and 
still can.  The "resistant" mites were created by overdoses and 
misuse of off-label close equivalents of Apistan, not by proper 
use of the Apistan strips themselves.  It remains to be proven
if resistance to both Apistan and coumaphos can be caused by
"per-label" use of CheckMite, but anecdotal reports are 
consistent in condemning the CheckMite.

Peter also said:

>> You will note that they did NOT detect formic acid, 
>> oxalic acid or thymol products.

and Brian responded:

> thats one of the reasons why they are called soft treatments 
> because they don't contaminate the comb. 

Sorry, Brian - that's wishful thinking.  The reason that MaryAnn
did not find any of the "soft treatment" residues is that there
has been only very limited uptake among the commercial beekeepers 
that were sampled.  Anyone with a Gas Chromatograph or HPLC/MS
can look at "before" and "after" samples of honey, comb, and pollen
and show the residue left by any or all of Formic, Oxalic, and/or
Thymol.

Yes, "formic acid is a natural component of honey", but the levels
found after treatment are waaay off the scale.  Yes, it may volatilize
out of at least honey after some period of time, and certainly will
volatilize out of honey that is even warmed by the ambient temperature
of a warm day, but wax is not going to give up as easily, and pollen
will tell the tale for a long time, moreso if mixed with honey and
stuffed into a cell.

Oxalic?  Easy to find.  Yes, it is nice that it is not a pesticide,
but don't fool yourself - these days a high-school student can look
at honey samples and make a very accurate guess as to whether the
beekeeper drives a diesel or a gasoline vehicle. 

And thymol?  THYMOL?  That is perhaps the most persistent residue of
all possible treatments.  Some folks can smell it days after the treatment
has been removed from the hives.  Lord only knows if it ever outgases
from anything.  Again, overdoses are the main culprit here, but people
tried hard to make thymol work as well as Apistan worked, and kept
cranking up the dosage.  Big mistake.

Peter also said:

>> Short answer: Residues of chemicals exist in all food, including
>> so-called organic food. 

Yeah, but the general public (naive, as usual) don't want to hear 
this, and there is a very unethical (or under-educated) group of 
self-proclaimed experts who want to claim that one can be "organic" 
simply by not treating diseased hives, by treating with the 
equivalent of crystals and happy thoughts, or by treating the
"soft" treatment options.

Those of us who teach novice courses are running into a new breed
of novice, one that monopolizes the classroom portion of the courses
by arguing with the instructor, the course materials, and the basic
premise of animal husbandry as applied to bees.  These instant
know-it-alls are finding lots of fodder on the internet on web
pages and in discussion groups created by a group of (George Imrie 
Memorial) "Bee-Havers" but these folks are not mere "Havers of Bees", 
they are overt "Miss-Bee-Havers", as they openly misbehave.

Part of the allure of these wacky beekeeping practices is the siren
song of "natural", "organic", and (for the true cultists) even
"biodynamic".    These willfully ignorant approaches to bee behavior
and biology are the Dianetics of beekeeping, and those who are 
drawn into these "alternative" approaches are setting up and 
mismanaging swarm factories in the form of top-bar hives.  
Aaron recently forwarded me a newsletter from one of these 
self=proclaimed "teachers", which was headlined:

"A Celebration of Swarm Season

Swarm Season is a good indication of 
honeybee health in our communities...  
The original Queen will leave in a 
primary swarm once the new Queens 
begin to pipe in their cells, 
announcing their emergence and the 
beginning of a new phase in the 
colonys' life. This good swarm season 
celebrates the vibrancy of honeybee 
colonies in our area..."

So, not only do we have hives with problems that go 
undetected due to a lack of proper training in disease
and pest diagnosis and treatment, but we also have 
those same colonies throwing off tiny swarm after tiny
swarm, with their bee-haver owners being told to 
"Celebrate" the swarms.

I have no idea how to de-program these misinformed people
and get them away from the ignorant dogma of the cults
they have been sucked into, but I welcome input from 
others who have run into these willfully incorrigible
so-called "beekeepers" and their so-called "teachers". 

Their numbers are growing. Just as anyone who would want 
to learn gardening would of course want to learn "organic" 
gardening, it seems a common impulse to embrace the idea
of "organic" beekeeping without understanding what the
word might actually mean in regard to honey, pollen, 
wax, and bees in this world of parts-per-trillion and
complete transparency.

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