Greets All As regards the resistance to fluvalinate and so on - we are nearing the end of an era. Adding poisons to beehives will soo probably be considered to be as dangerous as it is - those chemicals are designed/used to denature an aspect of the bugs lifestyle. Bugs are not especially dissimilar from us biologically and some of that effectiveness usually works on humans too. Newer technologies would be worth more investment. It was mentioned a while back that bacillus species (bacteria) have been used to control hive moth. Why not find a similar 'cure' for varroa. In a way, humans have introduced a new species of mite to an existing range of bees. If we die in that range, it is conceivable that bees may also become extinct for a while because we moved bugs around that they cannot control. We therefore have some sort of obligation to fix that. A rather interesting piece of work done recently on tomatoes I think resulted in a toxin used by little spiders to kill red spider mite being cloned directly into the DNA of the tomatoe. Result - leaves expressed the toxin and the mites cannot eat the leaves. They died. Similarily, a virus affecting for instance varroa could be found. In five to ten years it is conceivable that the technology will exist to transfer the genome of a virus killing varroa into a bee, such that at some crucial point in the brood development cycle, the brood will begin synthesizing virus as well. Any varroa present will die. Once that stage is passed, the DNA with the viral information in it will be zipped up and will never be used again (eg the section that codes for enzymes used in synthesis of brood pheremone - this section of DNA would only be accessed during brood stages, so hence the bee would only synthesize virus then). Expense?? Well it would be quite expensive, but then again would we all not rather have the profits of this sort of stuff going to queenbreeders breeding specific modified strains rather than to companies which are a bit out of date?? So, maybe at some point we can stop using stone implements to kill bugs, and join the information age in treating problems - after all DNA is information, and information is power. Keep well GArth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey