>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 *********************************************** 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 Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm