The US EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency) primary responsibility is to protect the environment.  Period. Efficacy of different products and formulations is not their primary goal.  Those matters are more between the registrant and the buyer.  A not so effective or possibly more effective formulation is secondary to their main charges.  Obviously the "EPA" seeks to do well, and for beekeeping, perhaps even more.  I hear they are paying attention.

There is a fine and complex dance in the registration process.  Some of the moves are pretty clear and set by statute.  Again, period.  Others are fine moves involving interpretation of statutes, registrants, and yes, attorneys on both sides.  Registrants who push the limits with endless challenges do not do as well as those who agree to fairly logical requests from the approving officials even though they delay registration.  Those who push the limits and confront typically do not do as well.  The more registrants are willing to accommodate the typically logical requests of reviewing EPA officers, the better an outcome for all.

For all of the above reasons, in our small hobby beekeeping operation, we rely first on genetically based resistance to varroa (coupled with a short growing and mite season in the high desert of the Rockies), then on soft chemicals, and when those do not work, on the harder more reliable ones.  And monitoring for varroa.....

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