I
>was just speaking to a commercial operator with 25,000 hives who uses only
a single treatment of thymol each year by running Russian stock.

Being from the "show me" state I would take the above with a grain of salt.
No doubt the commercial beekeeper is selling Russian queens and stock?

> It takes us less time, and costs less than Apistan
did.  And Apistan was a wonderful silver bullet.  I don't use the
synthetics for practical reasons, not idealistic.

Not idealistic? 

Back in the day apistan was cheap, fast and effective. Hard for me to believe formic, oxalic & thymol (with all their application issues involving temp & labor) takes less time and costs less. 

Of course varroa resistant to apistan is a problem and not what we are talking about above.


>  After being burned twice
when synthetics suddenly failed due to mite resistance, I was done with
them!  And that was before we learned about comb contamination.

PPB is *in my opinion* the above. I have never saw synthetics *suddenly fail*.
Happens over a period of time. Once collapse happens many beekeepers will claim a sudden collapse. 

I am not trying to piss Randy off but I have heard the story many times. All mitecides have no guarantee of varroa control. Simply tools. 
Each tool has its pros & cons.


>For some old dogs, it is hard to learn new tricks.  For others, mite
management is more of a nuisance than a major problem.

Formic, oxalic and thymol were around and in use in Europe before apistan was ever used in the U.S.. What is new about those products and why did you not use first?

Healthy bees today is a problem. Little issues with bees not taken care of can become big issues.Today's commercial beekeeping industry is sustained by being able to stay ahead of problems with constant splitting. *If* the day ever comes beekeepers can not keep ahead of problems by making splits commercial beekeeping may be in serious trouble.

Stepping up splitting has saved the industry not research.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Midwest beekeeper

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