"In discussing this very promising work with beekeeper colleagues there is a concern that this tech has been "buried" by big pharmachem companies who see it as a threat to their sales of standard miticides."
There are no mitocides currently sold for use on bees that makes the slightest economic sense to the registration owner. Clear back in 1985 another guy and I did a very extensive economic analysis of the pesticide business. Our conclusion was for new chemical substances any market of less than $50 million was not worth chasing and it was only worth chasing such tiny markets if there were at least enough other markets for that product to total $1 billion sales.
The only reason we have any mitocides at all is EPA has been incredibly forgiving in allowing registration with only truly minute amounts of data compared to normal and the kindness of a few companies willing to register products that they will never make any money from.
Dick
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