The EPA has specific legislation, policies, and standard procedures that it
must follow -- in order to comply with its mandate to enforce FIFRA
(the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act).
As with all government agencies, the EPA needs to cover its butt in order
to defend the Agency against lawsuits, and no EPA employee is going to
stick their neck out too far in order to help us (although they are
empathetic to our situation).

That said, the EPA is much better set up to deal with large chemical
manufacturing companies that are applying to register -- as formulated
products -- potentially-dangerous active ingredients to make sure that they
"pose no unreasonable risk to man or the environment."  We should all
support the EPA for doing so.  We beekeepers ourselves have become
notorious "pesticide scofflaws," which is why I'm begging the EPA to help
us to avoid having to do so in order to save our colonies.

That expensive registration process (hundreds of thousands, up to a million
dollars) typically takes several years, with the Registrants paying for the
testing, often performed by independent testing companies that follow
tedious and expensive Good Laboratory Practices.
Thus the large companies realize that there will be little return on
investment in registering an expensive formulated product when Jane
Beekeeper can buy the active ingredient off the shelf at a fraction of the
price.

Compared to pesticides that can be sold to the corn, soy, wheat, poultry,
or cattle industries, we beekeepers are an "orphan industry" that will
never buy enough product to make it worth their while.  The EPA does charge
small companies a lesser fee for registration, but the process is no
easier, nor does it take any less time.  I am consulting with individuals
who are pursuing registration of less-expensive oxalic acid than
Api-Bioxal, with additional approved application methods, or as formulated
products.

The Agency is more lenient with active ingredients that are on its Minimum
Risk Pesticide list, but unfortunately, oxalic acid and thymol are not on
that list.

I don't know how Vermont and other states ever thought that a state's 2EE
exemption would ever stand -- the exemption clearly states that it cannot
involve increasing the dose of the active ingredient.  I immediately
informed beekeepers in Vermont of that fact.  It's too bad that none of the
states that passed copycat exemptions ever read the FIFRA law.

As I've previously written, the EPA does not require a beekeeper to obtain
an Experimental Use Permit to experiment with oxalic acid  However, some
State Lead Agencies may require one.

The frustrating thing is that it is completely legal to use oxalic acid to
clean and bleach dysentery stains inside the hive, provided that the
beekeeper is not applying the OA with the intent to kill or disrupt a pest
(such as the varroa mite).

I'm not giving up.  This season -- supported solely by beekeeper donations
-- I will not only be following up on my OAE research, but also be testing
some completely legal, eco-friendly, alternative varroa-control methods and
potential formulated products that I've thought of.  Cross your fingers!

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
530 277 4450
ScientificBeekeeping.com

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