Good morning.  I have been reading the list daily for a few months now and appreciate the educational advice all are so willing to share.  I am a sideliner for the past 4 years and had 66% winter losses in spite of treating by the package instructions to the letter!  Reading this thread on miticides has raised a question for me.     I am a family physician, and based on my training and frightened of the organophosphates and even after receiving certification to use coumaphos I've decided not to use it.
I am 10 months into a treatment program using fogged food grade mineral oil as described by Dr. Pedro Rodriguez, but am not seeing  great results.  I have gone into this program after discussing to option with several nationally prominent academic entomologists (Deleplane/Tew among others) and my NC state apiculturist and state/regional inspectors.

This spring I bought 10 nucs from a local producer.  I was impressed by his thriving bees.   Regarding these supercharged Nucs....this unnamed producer was willing to reveal his secret for healthy bees.  It was recommended to him by his local inspector who also uses it for his bees.  The product is a miticide called Taktic-- generically Amitraz.

Questions:

1.    Have I just violated list decorum by writing these words?  If so please accept my apologies and I'll keep quiet!  If not.....

2.    Does anyone have non-personal, anecdotal stories from others who have experience with this miticide?

3.    Is this miticide used for an "off label" indication illegal?  I use off-label treatments daily in my work as a physician.  This is how treatments for other disease indications are discovered and subsequently keep medications under patent protection and earning billions of dollars per year for the shareholders!

4.    Who levies and enforces $10,000 fines?  Is this per hive, per apiary, or per bee farming operation?  If it is the later, there might be an "economic threshold" for treatment as proposed by the academics.  Increased output multiplied by the probability of detection and sanctions.  

5.    Should I really believe that there may be state/federal inspectors that use this product and yet are legally bound to bring sanctions against others who follow their lead?

Thanks,

Greg Hershner
North Carolina

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