In reviewing recent discussion here and where the topic has gone, I realise
that, perhaps I need to clarify my original intent when i wrote:

> Some of us were talking last year about getting motions passed at the
> AHPA and ABF meetings to get formic and oxalic approved for use the
> USA. Somehow, the idea came to nothing, and now, it is looking like a
> fumble that could lose the game for many.

I appreciated NOD's contributions, because it illustrates that there are
numerous perspectives to the topic, and how the development of commercial
product or products a situation can compete with and threaten
non-proprietary applications using generic products.

Speaking very generally, the claims that developers of branded products need
to make to differentiate themselves and to justify their 'value added' to
what are often really commodity items, intentionally raise concerns in
prospective customers, and the public, and can alarm regulators.

Marketers and developers of new processes typically emphasize safety,
efficacy, and convenience in their own products, and, even if they do not
intentionally denegrate the alternatives, this strong emphasis on the
desirable properties of their product or process (even if they are marginal
advantages) raises doubt about competing products or processes in the minds
of listeners.  The strong emphasis on safety, convenience, and efficacy,
true or not, necessarily implies -- human psychology being what it is -- the
lack of these characteristics in competing concepts or products.  Otherwise,
the listener thinks, why would anyone mention them?

Few really bother to check the facts, and most go along with what is most
familiar.  Since the promoter invests money and time into promotion, while
others may not bother, we wind up with the best promoted product, and not
necessarily the best product.  I'm writing this on a Windows(r) computer,
and I think that amply proves my point.

Anyhow, back to the original point: My friends who were discussing AHPA and
ABF motions were not looking for a commercial sponsor, but thinking more
along the lines of how formic and oxalic have been used in Canada and Europe
and hoping that such use could be permitted -- or at least not prosecuted --
in the US.  In actual fact, it very much appears that the several attempts
to come up with a commercial formic product in the US, which have failed,
have distracted the industry from what it really needs: a go-ahead to use
the products as they are used safely and successfully elsewhere in the
world.

That's where the motion came in: We think that the ABF and AHPC each must
make it an official policy to work towards obtaining official approval -- or
at least official indifference -- for (at least temporary)  beekeeper use of
formic and oxalic, without having that approval tied to any proprietary
product.

Let's hope, for the sake of the bees -- an the almond industry -- that
something makes people wake up and see that beekeepers need to do this for
themselves.  It CAN be done.  Of course there are those who can make very
powerful arguments that it cannot, but if they get onside and turn their
minds and their writing skills  to the job and prove of why it CAN be done,
instead of wasting effort proving why it cannot happen, everyone will
benefit.

After all, the US bee industry has put up the funds and willpower for
countervail, and created the NHB.  I cannot believe that thay cannot manage
to get approval for at least some generic formic and oxalic applications.
I'm sure that the almond people would put up some bucks and pull some
strings.

Anyhow, it is really not my business.

allen
A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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