Brian wrote: >Maybe Kim is referring to the fact that Checkmite and Apistan are still being offered for sale and we do have OVERWHELMING concrete evidence that these materials damage drone and queen reproductive health and accumulate in brood comb and combine synergistically to be even more dangerous. True! However not as big a deal as has been presented. Hives thriving on this type comb is hard to argue with! None of my fellow beeks have used these products in well over a decade. if bee supply houses would stop selling these products then the use would go away. The ads for these products in my opinion make the hobby beek feel these products are the way to go! Just like with drugs. Demand keeps both drugs and Checkmite & Apistan selling. Blaming Kim ( or even the bee magazines) for glossy full page ads is not fair. Because of the internet bee magazines are in danger ( as well as many newspapers) and are forced to take advertising the mag may or may not agree with. Both bee magazines have ran many articles describing the problems you listed! >Seems to me that some people in our industry only want to believe the >science that fits with their own group think echo chamber. Surely Brian by now you will at least give the majority of the worlds beeks the benefit of the doubt and realize as a higher number of beeks daily come on board that IMID kills bees. IMID has cost me a bunch of money and I looked at a IMID kill ( CCD?) today. > If you have time some day I will show you thousands of colonies of bees on old dark comb on which both Checkmite & Apistan have been used. I bought into the scenario comb contamination was a big deal ( and changed all the comb in my apiaries). Clean comb is a good thing but plenty of beeks have got thriving hives on the comb you speak of. As I said before. Hobby beeks use those strips. Not commercial beeks. If both were pulled tomorrow none of the commercial beeks would care. >Seems like the industry fiddles with bedtime stories about Imid while Rome >burns........ Opinions vary. I feel the real issue is IMId. I hope we can agree to disagree. Bob Ps. Putting in long hours with bees. Little time for internet but thought I would add my two cents worth to Brian's post. I apologize for questions asked of me an unable to respond to due to time issues. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html