>As soon as organic beekeepers demonstrate successful methods that allow them 
to out
>compete conventional beekeepers, the conventional beekeepers will quickly 
adopt those methods.

I can give an example of the process above.
When varroa come to Finland we went through the normal hard chemicals, started 
with Folbex ( bromoprobylate), then continued with Perizin (=kumafoss) and 
ended up with Apistan (fluvalinate). The changes were at that point not because 
of resistance but because of changes in marketing and registrations. 
Then in 1995 we got the first severe cases of resistance to Apistan. At that 
point more than 80 % of beekeepers were using Apistan, the rest used mainly 
formic because they were organic or did not like the idea of residues in wax. 
Some also did not want to pay so much. At that time apistan treatment was about 
20 times more in price if you did not calculate work costs for doing the 
treatment.

I was already working at that point as an beekeeping advicer. We thought about 
the situation and started a study of treatments that we knew would not leave 
residues that would grow annually in bee products. Formic, thymol and oxalic 
treatments do give resides as will anything that you use, but the residues do 
not grow annually (they evaporate) and all of these tree can be found also 
naturally in honey,, so many are not so concerned about their use.  So we 
tested different ways to treat with formic, thymol and oxalic. After few years 
we gave instructions what was the best way, and beekeepers changed to them. At 
that time there was also a new ?hard? chemical option, but beekeepers decided 
not to use it. In about 6 years hard chemicals disappeared from market because 
it was not profitable for bee supply companies to pay registrations when so few 
were buying. At that point I was concerned that there would be complaints from 
those who wanted to use them, but no fuss.

For the past 10 years the all beekeepers in Finland have been treating varroa 
practicly only with formic, thymol and oxalic. Ok there is some that import 
other options, but we know that that is for less than 1 % of hives. 

In EU formic, thymol and oxalic treatments are permitted in organic 
production, so now practicly all beekeepers are doing varroa treatments organic 
way. But only less than 10% of beekeepers are organic because there is other 
rules to follow.

Ari Seppälä
Finland

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