Amiflex with Véto-Pharma's Amber Leach and Miguel Rodriguez (S6, E07)

S6, E07 - Amiflex with Véto-Pharma's Amber Leach and Miguel Rodriguez

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast. Your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment, presented by Betterbee. I'm Jeff Ott.

Kim Flottum: I'm Kim Flottum.

Global Patties: Hey, Jeff and Kim. Today's sponsor is Global Patties. They're a family-operated business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honeybees. It's a good time to think about honeybee nutrition. Feeding your hive's protein supplement patties will ensure that they produce strong and healthy colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Now is a great time to consider what type of patty is right for your area and your honeybees. Global offers a variety of standard patties as well as custom patties to meet your needs. No matter where you are, global is ready to serve you out of their manufacturing plants in Airdrie, Alberta, and in Butte Montana, or from distribution depots across the continent. Visit them today at www.globalpatties.com.

Jeff: Thank you, Sherry. A quick shout-out to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on our website. There you can read up on our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping. Search for, download, and listen to over 200 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each show, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors.

You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com. Hey, everybody, thanks again for joining. We have a great episode for you this week. Joining Kim and me are Amber Leach and Miguel Rodriguez from Véto-Pharma to talk about their new varroa fighting product they have just released called Amiflex. It's a quick-hitting amitraz-based product you may want to add to your varroa management cycle. That's coming up shortly. Before we hear from Amber and Miguel, Ed Colby will be joining us to tell us a tale from the bottom board.

Hey, did you happen to catch last week's episode with Lars Chittka?

If you haven't, I really recommend that you do. It's really fascinating. However, during the opening, I talked with Becky Masterman from the Minnesota Honey Producers about the USDA-ARS NP as a National Program 305 comment period, which ends August 7th. NP-305 sets the research priorities for the USDA-ARS bee lab for the next five years. Right now, and until August 7th, the USDA-ARS is soliciting beekeeper feedback and comments on where they should focus their research funding. Unfortunately, and as important as this decision is to beekeepers, relatively few beekeepers know about this open comment period.

You can help set the strategic direction for the USDA-ARS bee lab for the next five years by adding your comments to the USDA-ARS questions. Check out the link in the show notes or simply search for USDA-ARS NP-305 to find the commenting website. You can also check the Minnesota Honey Producers Association website, news, and events page for what they are suggesting. This is your chance to help set the research priorities for the next five years. Okay, now we hear from Ed Colby as he reads his story from the March 2010 issue of Bee Culture and from his book, A Beekeeper's Life. Tales from the Bottom Board. This story is titled Dead Man Walking.

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Ed Colby: Some days turn out unforgettable in the oddest and most unpredictable ways. A few Colorado Octobers ago, never mind how many, we got Paul's bees ready to go to California for the almonds. We worked in pairs. One of us would tip the hive forward while the other used a hive tool to pry off the pollen trap. The Book Cliff Range was already white, and snow swirled around us as we worked. The bees were all in the hives, at least until we riled them up. I don't recall that anybody had a smoker going. We just did it. Some hives scarcely stirred, but in others, the little darlings came out with a vengeance.

When I stepped away from the mayhem to relieve myself, I got stung not once, but twice. This really got my attention. I cried out, and Mark said, "Come on, how could any bee find such a small target?" The entire crew got a laugh at my expense. They were such a good-natured bunch. By noon, we were cold and a little beat up by the bees. When Paul said, "I'll buy lunch in Battlement Mesa, " nobody objected. The White Buffalo was the only joint in town. As we pulled into the parking lot, my old friend, Jim Bare, came out of the restaurant, headed down the sidewalk towards City Market.

I saw him clearly from 25 yards away. He walked slightly hunched the way he always did, with his hands in the pockets of his old red ski jacket. I almost jumped out of the truck to say hello. Looking back, I wonder why I didn't. It didn't surprise me to see Bare because I knew he hung out at the White Buffalo. We'd had lunch there a while back. He was in poor health. I'd meant to call him again, but you know how it is. After we all ordered, I eased over to the bar. The bartender smoked a cigarette as he wiped the bar top. A couple of aging long hairs sat staring into their beers.

I wanted to leave my beekeeper business card with the bartender for Bare when he stopped in."Say," I said to the bartender, "you wouldn't happen to know a guy by the name of Jim Bare, would you?" "Can't say that I do," the bartender said. Now, this set me back because I knew Bare was a regular here. I said, "He lives in Battlement Mesa. You just about have to know him." Then I described a certain unmistakable physical peculiarity of Bare's. It wasn't something I'd ordinarily mention, but just this one time I did. "Oh, that guy?" The bartender said.

"He died last spring. We had a wake right here in the bar." The old hippies looked up and nodded knowingly. The bartender continued. "He special ordered a bottle of his favorite single malt scotch. It's still here. We're waiting for him to come get it." All this hit me like a stomach punch. Bare was a friend and an easy man to like. When I was a stone mason he was my hod carrier. We somehow got into a wrestling match once. We took a road trip together. A lover of books, he had a certain scholarly heir and a born storyteller, he spoke only cryptically about his novel, "A work in progress."

Maybe as a writer I felt a certain kinship. Walking away from the bar, I had this eerie feeling. Back at our table, I said to Paul and the boys, "I don't get it. I just saw a guy in the parking lot, but the bartender says he's dead. Now, who do I believe? A guy who doesn't even know my buddy's name or my own eyes?" There had been women in Bare's life, but I was pretty sure he lived alone. I knew he had a grown daughter. When I dialed his number, a woman's voice answered on the machine. I left a message for Bare. I said I'd heard a rumor that he might be dead.

Would he mind calling me and setting me straight? This was an odd message for sure, but if Bare was still alive, he'd be most amused. No one ever called me back. Finally, I called Bare's best friend, and he confirmed the worst. Okay, I can accept this. I have to, but who was the man in the red jacket?

My Brazilian friend, Dea, is the daughter of Helena Vieira Costa . Mother Helena, the legendary psychic and orphanage founder from the city of Alagoinhas. Even today, over a decade after her death, Mother Helena's fame as a medium and near saint, rest, secure.

Not only in Alagoinhas but to the furthest reaches of the state of Bahia. All this being a way of saying Dea knows her way around the nether world. Though no seer herself, for Dea, the spirit world nonetheless forms a sort of backdrop to her earthly life. Over lunch, Dea listened bemusedly to my story about Bare. Maybe her dark eyes twinkled. I said, "What do you make of the guy in the red jacket?" She said, "That was your friend. He showed himself to you as a way to say hello." I said, "You really think so?" Dea laughed that anyone could be so skeptical.

"Of course," she said. "Who else could it have been?"

Did you find this story amusing, heartwarming, instructive? Contact me, Ed Colby, at coloradobees1@gmail.com. That's coloradobees, the numeral 1@gmail.com. I'll promptly mail you a signed copy of A Beekeeper's Life. Tales from the Bottom Board, a collection of Bee Culture columns. Price, $25. Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back.

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Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbials site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, everybody, welcome back. Sitting across the virtual table right now, and it's stretched far, we're in North America, and we're going across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way over to Madrid, Spain, I want to welcome Amber Leach, sales manager for Véto-Pharma, and Miguel Ángel Rodriguez, a doctor in veterinary medicine, also with Véto-Pharma. Thank you for joining the show.

Amber Leach: Thanks for having us.

Miguel Rodriguez: Yes, thanks a lot.

Kim: We're glad you could make it today. I'm interested in this new product that you have, so we will get to that right now, both of you. Amber, probably you start. How did you get to be where you are in the beekeeping world and with Véto-Pharma?

Amber: About 10 years ago, my oldest daughter came home and said, erroneously, but I didn't know it at the time, "Mom, we have to save the bees." She was at that age where I was really looking for a way to keep a really close bond with her. She was midway through her teenage years, and I knew that if we had this, it would be a mutual meeting ground of sorts for us, so I tried to take an interest in what she was taking an interest in. I'd always thought bees were interesting or cool before that, but it was not on my radar at all.

Unfortunately, like a lot of beginning beekeepers, a lot of first-year beekeepers, I went and bought three nukes.

Thank goodness they weren't delivered immediately, so I did have the time to take a couple of classes. I read Beekeeping for Dummies, which I still think is probably one of the best books out there for first-year beekeepers. Later that spring, or that following spring rather, we were baptized by fire, and what started as a way to relate to my daughter turned into an almost immediate obsession for my entire family. Both my kids loved it. They wanted their own hives, they wanted their own smokers, their own suits. Fast forward, a couple of years, I was living in Kentucky and my local bee club needed some young blood, I guess.

Now, I don't necessarily consider myself young, but young-ish compared to the demographics of this particular bee club. They wanted some females on board, and I guess by default I was nominated as president of that bee club still with only a couple of years under my belt. When you have a title, whether it means anything or not, people think that you have the answers. I knew at that point that I needed to have more knowledge than what I had, so I just dove deeper, and it just evolved into us starting our own little hobby farm, and kind of a side hustle with honey and wax products, and taught a couple of classes at the library.

I had just, against professional guidance, put that on my LinkedIn profile because I spent about 20 years on the human side of pharmaceuticals curating what looked like this white-collar career. When COVID hit, it was, I didn't know if I was going to become the next trash man or the administrator of a hospital, so I figured I wanted to give myself as many options as possible and I updated my LinkedIn profile and a recruiter for Véto-Pharma found me. It was just kind of the perfect marriage of what I had done and what I had come to love.

It felt like one of those, usually if it's too good to be true, it is, but this was one of those things where that cliché is wrong. They allowed me to join their team, and now I manage the USA in Canada. I'll be here two years in November. It's still as much fun, and I'm still learning as much, exponentially so, as the week I started.

Jeff: You meant to say that Beekeeping for Dummies is the second-best beginning beekeeping [laughter] book after Kim's book.

Amber: Ah, yes, you're right, yes.

Jeff: Yes, I knew that's what you wanted to say because we talked about it before.

[laughter]

Amber: Forgive me, I stand corrected. You're right.

Kim: Thank you, Amber.

Amber: You're welcome.

Kim: Miguel, how did you get to where you are?

Miguel: It's also a long story. I used to have a grandpa that was very interested on bees, and he was managing, for a long time, a couple of beehives in the North of Spain. When we were spending three months a year with them, we were really interested about these animals. In my business career, I didn't have the opportunity to start working with them until I joined Véto-Pharma, but I studied veterinary science and I was really interested about these animals. Unfortunately, I started as somewhere in the human side of the business.

I had the opportunity to jump to the pet side, so I started with pets, but I realized that I was not really interested about those animals, unfortunately.

I had the opportunity to join Véto-Pharma, and I didn't doubt it at any time. I just jumped to the company, and I started learning a lot about the bees and having the opportunity to go to the university again to have a degree on bees. It's an exciting story that I am really loving every day. It's been five years since I'm at Véto-Pharma. I hope it's still a long story here.

Kim: You both have had interesting journeys. I'm not going to say a-typical, but not terribly common either, following your daughter as opposed to your daughter following you. Miguel, you bouncing around between different things that she liked to do, and not unlike a lot of people, bees stood out, and here you are after all these years. What else does Véto-Pharma do besides bees? Just a quick overview of the veterinary side of your business.

Miguel: Véto-Pharma, it's almost 100% focused on bees. We have a very small part of the business, which is a kind of CDMO. It's a contract manufacturer company, which provides some products for pets, for some other companies, but we are mainly focused on bees. Trying to support beekeepers and trying to offer solutions mainly for varroa, but also considering the nutritional side of the business and some other pests that we have to face like the Asian hornet or the Vespa mandarinia or other wasps.

Kim: That makes it simple. Then you just really narrowed it down to bees are your business. I have to ask you, you have a new product on the market for controlling varroa mites. The data that I've read on this seems to think that it's very effective, easy, safe on bees, and people, and honey. Can you give me some background on where it came from, and how do beekeepers use it, and why should they be using that along with other control management decisions? Where does it fit in, in a good management thing, and especially for commercial beekeepers?

Miguel: Amiflex is a six-year R&D project. We have tried to be able to offer to the beekeepers. It's to have the first, I will say amitraz, flash treatment legally approved by EPA in United States that effectively knocks down varroa mite infestation. Something absolutely new in terms of the format, which is a gel formulation. Very easy to use as you mentioned.

I think it's very flexible because you can treat between honey flows, prevent the out-of-control varroa population at the end of the season as well, or you can also use it as a quickly knockdown before applying a long-term treatment as well.

I think it's something that could be very well adapted to different kind of strategies among commercial beekeepers mainly because of the format. I think it will be something really valuable for them according to the situations they will have to face in the coming years.

Jeff: When you say flash, is that the quick treatment between other management practices you're doing?

Miguel: Yes, but just considering that the only amitraz available product legally speaking in US, it's called Apivar, which is also manufactured by Véto-Pharma, and it's an eight-weeks treatment. Then you compare with Amiflex, it's only a seven-day treatment. It's really fast the way you can knock down the varroa mites inside the hive.

Kim: First off, I encourage everybody to take a look at the information available on your webpage because it's very thorough. It's an amitraz product, and as you say, it's a gel. From the pictures that I was able to see, it looks like you apply it on something on a top bar. I don't know what those are, two different plates or something about what, 2 inches long? You just squeeze this stuff out of the tube, like you would a caulking gun, and you put two of those for each box. Do I have that right?

Amber: Yes, and there are wooden shims that'll go right across the top of the frames. We're encouraging folks to use those shims. I know that sometimes folks are going to have their own ideas of how to do things, but in order to take that product if there is any remaining at the end of 7 days or 14 days, depending on what your treatment is, then we want to make sure that folks are able to take those shims back out.

Kim: All right. It's a small piece of wood that sits on the top bar. You take your caulking gun and you put a squirter on it. I think it's a squirt, and it doesn't say, or I've missed, is a squirt always just 3-- Was it 3 ounces? What comes out is measured.

Amber: Correct.

Miguel: The gun is especially specialized, prepared for making the doses, it's 3 milliliters in each row. You use 6 milliliters in a single brood box, or you use 12 milliliters in a double brood box.

Kim: Yes, milliliters.

Miguel: You apply directly on the wooden supports.

Kim: Okay. I'm going to say seven days. You apply it, and then in seven days, it's either you'd have to remove it or it's already been used. I'm guessing since you're putting it on a top bar and it's exposed, this is a direct contact control of varroa with the amitraz in the gel. Is that correct?

Miguel: It's that correct, yes. The product should be distributed among the bees, and you can use two different treatments according to the level of infestation that you have in your hives. You can use a one-week treatment, seven days treatment, and then you remove the wooden supports with the accident of the product that has not been distributed by the bees, or you can just place again after one week break. You will treat one week, remove for one week, and then treat for another week. It's a three weeks treatment with one week in the middle without treating. That gives you a level of efficacy around 80%, 85% depending on the conditions of the beehive.

Kim: That's pretty good 85%. I've been looking for 85% control of everything since I started keeping bees I think. I haven't had that much luck. We can get it from Véto-Pharma. It's available now in the US, and I can call up somebody and have some delivered.

Amber: Not yet. It's been approved federally, and then after federal registration comes registration state by state. Right now our regulatory team is working to get it registered in each of the states. Then once that's done, we'll be able to make it available for purchase by our distributors in those states. It's a slow process, kind of a hurry up and wait, but it's coming.

Jeff: This is a great opportunity to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor who will eventually be selling this I'm sure, and we'll be right back.

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Kim: One of the pluses that you talk about is labor. Applying this product for a commercial beekeeper. The pictures, and what you've told me here, it sounds fairly simple. I put on two of those- what did you call them?- two of those sticks, squeeze, and it automatically measures it. I'm not going to overdose them or underdose them. If I've got two boxes, I put the next box on top, squeeze, squeeze, cover on, go home. You must have been working with commercial beekeepers to get this working. What's their opinion of the control that this compound is doing, and the labor savings that it's allowing them to have because it's so easy?

Amber: We developed the product with commercial beekeepers in mind. We wanted something that was efficient, time efficient. We wanted something that was affordable. Now that we have approval federally, we've gathered a group of commercial beekeepers that most folks would know by name in the industry. They are going to do a post-registration trial for us. To date, nobody in the United States, from a commercial perspective, has had any experience with-- Most of our testing was done in France. We're super excited to get our first shipment of Amiflex to the United States.

Our ETA for us is July 17th, and then get that distributed out to these folks who are going to participate in the trial because, ultimately, we want to know from them, did we hit the mark. If we didn't hit the mark, what do we need to do to improve that? Sometime, we're hoping by fall treatment season, we'll have some feedback from your peers and colleagues in the commercial side of things here in the United States.

Jeff: How does amitraz work? Is it just on the adult mites? Does it get the larval stage of mites under the brood cappings?

Miguel: Amitraz penetrates through the cuticle or by ingestion in varroas. They block the octopamine receptors involved in the neuronal transmission. Varroa basically die because of starvation of inability to penetrate in new cells and reproduce because they don't have the possibility. It's an excessive stimulation of the central nervous system, causing a paralysis which is the main mode of action of amitraz.

Jeff: Is it effective under the capping?

Miguel: No it's not. There is no action under the capping just for phoretic (mites).

Jeff: Amitraz has been around for many years. It's used in agriculture for mites and ticks that type of thing. When you're talking about the correct dosage, is that a beekeeper-determined dosage amount, like a horse warmer where you turn the dial and you can set the dosage, or is that automatic per the applicator?

Amber: Each squeeze will be 3 milliliters. On each shim, you'll have 3 milliliters. For a single, you'll have 6 milliliters total. For a double, you'll have 6 milliliters and 6 milliliters, and the gun out, you can't overdose it. Unless you just purposely continue to use the trigger, but one trigger pole is going to be 3 milliliters.

Jeff: Oh, good, good, good. They can get busy out in the field. It's good to have that backup, that just one and done.

Kim: I'm not a commercial beekeeper. I'm a small backyard hobby guy. How much is this going to cost me say over the course of a season?

Amber: At this point because we don't have registration in the States, and we don't have agreements with our distributors, we haven't published pricing yet. We're really, really hopeful that it's going to be on par with what commercial beekeepers would find attractive because again, it was designed primarily for them. Anybody can use it really but we wanted to make something again that was both time and cost-efficient for these guys. We're really hoping that it comes in at a price point that is going to be a pleasant surprise for anybody who would want to use it in their apiary.

Kim: I would guess that's especially true considering the labor that you are avoiding having to pay for. You've got that savings, and then you've got whatever the product costs you. When this seven days is done, do I have to go back and get that little paddle that I put on, or can I just let the bees move it to the bottom board?

Amber: We ask that you take it out.

Kim: That makes sense. Especially if it wasn't all gone, you'd want it out of there. In your experience, how many of those treatments disappear in seven days completely? What I'm looking at is what's the chances that most of these will already be gone after seven days completely, and the chemical has been used. Is that, to make it easy, some, lots, or none?

Miguel: I think we have seen strong colonies that in three days are able to remove all the gel in the top parts, and we have seen also some beehives, weak beehives, that they still almost have most of the treatment after one week. Depends a lot on the bees, of course.

Kim: It's nice to know that bees are as unpredictable with your product as they are, everything else we run into with them, isn't it? [laughter] This will be available at probably every major bee supply outfit will have them, and/or can I get them directly from you, or if I'm a commercial beekeeper, and I'm buying a million of these, can I get them directly from you like groceries wholesale?

Amber: Not at this point. Everything that we've done, for the most part, has been through distribution channels. In order to launch this and make it something that's fair, that everybody has access to, we're going to continue that same business model just so that there's nobody left in the dark.

Jeff: You're not distributing through Costco or something else?

Amber: No, not yet.

Jeff: If I'm a beekeeper and I'm looking at my overall IPM plan for varroa, and you have two products that are amitraz-based, you have Apivar and Amiflex, help me decide where one is used and figure out where that fits in my plan for the treatment of varroa.

Miguel: I will say they are complementary, but Amiflex it has now the proposal of being the replacement of Apivar at any time. Apivar is a long-term treatment. It's a treatment of eight weeks, while Amiflex is a treatment of seven days. You can use Amiflex before a honey flow, between two honey flows, or even before a long-term treatment to use as a knockdown effect. I think it depends, as you mentioned, Jeff, on your strategy, on your IPM management to decide which is the best moment, which is the best way you want to use the product.

Amiflex is really flexible. You can use it almost through the season at any time, while Apivar will be, I will say limited because it's a long-term treatment. You can use it maybe at the beginning of the season before the honey flows or as the fall treatment after the end of the season. You can not use it in between because it will affect the residues and the quality of your honey. If you need something really fast, if you need something to knock down the level of infestation, use Amiflex during the season. If you are just thinking about a long-term control just before overwintering, just before the spring season, let's think about Apivar probably. This is how we should position both products.

Amber: A lot of times from a marketing perspective, newer is always perceived as better. Some folks will jump on board and develop a loyalty to a product that we love and appreciate, but Amiflex isn't designed to be the solution for the whole problem, just part of the solution. We want to make sure that folks have an IPM that is robust and that makes sense, and that they are testing their mite levels because that will be key to the longevity of the lifespan of this and any other products that follow it.

Jeff: Constant monitoring is really important to make the most of any treatment plan. What's the residual life of Amiflex? You remove the tongue depressor from the hive, for lack of better term, it's the pad. How long after that is Amiflex still actively killing varroa in that colony? Up to three days afterwards, five days, no days?

Miguel: [chuckles] The effect of amitraz, in general, it's due to the distribution of the product. While you are able to remove the product from the beehive, the limit is reduced. Probably there are small particles around that are still being distributed by bees, but it's limited. I will say they need the product inside to be able to distribute it well. I will say it's limited.

Kim: This stuff gets on bees because they're just walking over it, or there's some attractive odor, or flavor, or taste, or something that draws them to it, or is it just because I've got so many bees in the hive, the opportunity for most of those bees to encounter one of those two applications is almost one? Am I close?

Amber: Anything that's in the hive that's not designed to be there, they want to get it out?

Kim: Yes.

Amber: It works just in terms of contact. I'll say it works like that in terms of contact. They don't want it in there, so they're going to do their best to get it out. They're coming in contact with it. It's permeating cuticle, and to Miguel's point earlier then, the bees basically suffer seizures, for a lack of a better word, and fall off, and are then separated from their food source.

Miguel: Yes. The product does not contain any specific flavor or attractant for bees. As Amber mentioned, it's a question of they want to remove it from the beehive as soon as possible. They will do the work for us.

Kim: What am I missing? What are we missing on this product and the others that you have that we haven't asked you about?

Amber: One of the things that I think we would be remiss in ending this podcast without mentioning is that currently, the labeling for Amiflex is going to contain an acronym, R-U-P, which stands for Restricted Use Pesticide. We have to make that very clear just because, in order to use the product, in order to buy the product, you have to have a certification through the authorities in your state to both buy it and to use it. We want to make sure that education is key. I'm sure that there will be folks, Uncle Frank is going to buy it and give some to his cousin.

We know that there are things out there that are going to be out of our control. However, the onus is on us to stress that this is a product that requires a specific special certification from the authorities in your state in order to both purchase and to use. It's less than $100. It's super easy to go on to the EPAs website and find those links, and then connect yourself to yours, to the organization that's specific to your state. We're hoping that eventually that gets removed. If it does, you'll hear it from us first because we'll be super excited about the fact that that's no longer a caveat, but at this point, we want to make sure that folks know that you can't just go get it and use it. We want to make sure that they've done their due diligence like we have.

Kim: Is the other product with the same active ingredient restricted like that?

Amber: No, sir.

Miguel: It's not a question of the active itself, it's a question of the excipients that are related. The product contains calcium oxide, and its skin and eye irritant , so we need to provide specific information, specific protocols to avoid these restriction use pesticides claused. We are working on that, but we were not aware of that at the beginning. That's why the product was approved at the beginning, including this clause, but we think we will be able to provide and discuss with EPA in order to remove this clause and to make it more easy to use for beekeepers, avoiding this special applicator license.

As Amber mentioned just before, at this stage, we need to really educate beekeepers on that. It's important for them to use it under these rules, and they have to use this so they have to acquire this license before using the product.

Kim: Do I have to have that license before I can purchase it?

Miguel: Yes, exactly.

Kim: That gives you a heads up right there that if I want to use this stuff, I got to jump through all the other hoops first, and then I can go out and get it. Okay.

Jeff: It has to be, one, approved by the state you're in. Then you also have to have the training certification.

Amber: Right. If folks want to do their due diligence now, they can go get their RUP certification, RUP spray standard umbrella for pesticides or miticides, and other products that fall underneath. Folks can go get that now so that they're prepared whenever it does actually hit the market.

Kim: That'd be a smart thing to do before I can get it.

Jeff: Additional education or training about any of that would be valuable for any beekeeper, whether you plan on using this product or Apivar, or anything else, just to have an understanding of what's out there and what the use requirements are.

Amber: To piggyback onto that so that I don't forget it, as responsible conservationists, we want to make sure that folks are also disposing of those shims and any remaining product according to their state and local authorities, ensuring that they're avoiding all water sources so that there's no potential for folks drinking water to get contaminated. You could contact your waste disposal authority, but we want to make sure that folks are disposing of it properly and a lot of times you'll see that the Apivar strips just taken out of the hives and thrown next to the hive stand. I've seen it 100 times, those things just forgotten out there in the bee yard. I can't say that I'm not guilty of the same thing. However, we want to make sure that we promote the proper just use and disposal of the product.

Kim: That's good. Sure.

Jeff: Amber and Miguel, I really appreciate you coming onto the show to talk to us about the new Véto-Pharma product, Amiflex. I think it's going to be an important tool in the beekeeper's toolkit to treat and battle this varroa mite. Just looking down the road, does it do anything to triple-A lamps? [laughs] That's a future podcast. We can talk about that another time. Again, thank you so much for being on Beekeeping Today podcast.

Miguel: Yes, thanks for inviting us. Pleasure.

Kim: This was good. I learned a lot. Good luck. I'll tell you one thing. When it's available, just send Jeff a note, and he will put it on the webpage while your show notes so that when people are looking at it, you can say, "Product now available," whenever the date is. All right?

Amber: Got you.

Miguel: Super. That helps.

Jeff: Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

Amber: Thank you.

Miguel: Thanks, guys. Bye-bye.

Jeff: I am for any new product that will give beekeepers another option in the varroa management plan. This is a good thing for beekeepers.

Kim: Yes. Varroa management is the bugaboo, if you pardon the expression, in beekeeping. The survey that just came out, who did that?

Jeff: Be Informed Partnership.

Kim: The Be Informed Partnership was what? 48 plus percent bees died last winter. The burden of guilt falls almost exclusively, not exclusively, but certainly on viruses and mites, and everything else comes in third. Still awesome, but this is a two you get rid of. If you could solve varroa and the viruses that they pass from themselves to bees, beekeeping would be way different, and this is a way to look at doing that.

Jeff: Oh, absolutely. I've whined on multiple occasions on the podcast about beekeeping now is very frustrating and saddening versus the BV before varroa beekeeping. When I started, definitely when you started, we worried about American Filbert, and that was it. Then later, Africanized bees, and then the tracheal mite. It's, varroa has changed the whole entire plan and management structure of beekeeping, so I welcome this tool.

Kim: It will work for some beekeepers really well. They'll be able to use it in their management, they'll save money on labor. I hadn't thought about the disposal of those sticks that you put that stuff on. Where do you put those when you're done, I'm wondering. You don't put them in your pocket. I don't think I'd want to put one in my smoker.

Jeff: Oh God, no.

Kim: [laughs] You got a baggie with you or something, you take them home, and then you find a toxic waste dump someplace where you put them, so the compound that's left in there stays in there and doesn't get messed up in the rest of the environment. It's like every other toxic chemical that we use, if used correctly and disposed of correctly, it solves problems and causes few problems.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to rate us five stars on Apple podcasts or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any web page. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and especially Betterbee for their longtime support of this podcast. Thanks to Northern Bee Books for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you the Beekeeping Today Podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions or comments at Leave a Comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

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[00:41:59] [END OF AUDIO]