I have better luck keeping them healthy without all the poisons in the hive. I have treated with Apistan out of desperation and the bees died anyway. I'm having better luck without it.
People treat their bees all the time and they die, but if you don't treat your's and they die, then it's your fault.
Only twice I've NOT treated and they died from mites.
Here's a clip from Charles Martin Simon:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/simon/10principles.htm
"I love Ormand. He's my friend. Acknowledged grand master of the game, third generation beekeeper, author of two great books on the subject, holder of the world's record in the GUINESS BOOK OF RECORDS for the most honey produced by a single hive in a single season with a single queen, 404 pounds, a record that held from 1957 - 1963, when it was broken only with the use of multiple queens. Ormand's true, single-queen record will most likely never be even seriously challenged. But he doesn't keep bees anymore. The unthinkable happened. It was not that he got too old. He is very old, but he still works in carpentry. What happened was the mites wiped him out.
Ormand played by the rules. Bought the miticide and followed the directions. I bought the stuff too. But when I was handling it still sealed in foil, I could taste it in my gums, and it tasted toxic, so I didn't use it. So my bees died. But Ormand's bees died too. Besides, we were hearing reports from all around the nation that it was not working. But "they" were insisting that we use it anyway, the implication being if we didn't use it, we were part of the problem. But if we did use it, our bees still died. Year after year, I didn't use it. Year after year, I'd start new swarms in the spring, only to have them die off in the fall and early winter. I didn't quit only because I couldn't. Then we heard the miticide was outlawed in Scandinavia."
[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited June 15, 2004).]