Murray,
An exceptional post. What little I have heard matches your supposition. It was
not mis-use of Apistan that has caused mite resistance but the use of MAVRIK by
commercial beekeepers who wanted to do it on the cheap. It would be difficult to
prove but makes sense based on the spread of info on MAVRIK on the net and
elsewhere.
Bill Truesdell
Bath. ME
 
Murray McGregor wrote: (in part)
 
> Aside from this issue for the moment, I read with great interest the
> various postings about the Texas vs. John Caldiera case. I noted
> however, that no-one seemed to be looking at the issue behind it all:
> the use of MAVRIK. Whilst the tactics used by the authorities were, from
> all reports, ridiculous and draconian, it is probably important to
> discover why they wanted to take this action. We over here have not
> heard enough about the case to reach a balanced conclusion.
>
> There will probably be some who will jump in here and say it was just to
> protect vested interests, but it could just be that they were aware of
> the situation which had built up in Europe through the use of
> innaccurate fluvalinate dosing using home made MAVRIK treatments. It is
> strongly implicated in resistance development where undertreatment has
> occurred and high residue levels in wax where overdosed. It is certainly
> cheap, but you could be borrowing from your future to save a bit now, as
> it will possibly shorten the useful life of fluvalinate as a varroa
> control measure. It will be interesting over the coming seasons to see
> where the genuinely resistant mites first appear in North America and
> see if it is a high MAVRIK use area. Of course, you live in a free
> country over there and education, not litigation, should have been the
> approach.