A Piece of Betterbee History: a Letter to Founder Bob Stevens

In a fun trip through the Betterbee archives, we found a letter to Betterbee founder, Bob Stevens, from Roger “Doc” Morse, who led honey bee research at Cornell University’s Dyce Lab.  

In 1993, varroa mites had been in the U.S. for only 6 years, and were spreading fast from state to state. Bob, eager to keep Betterbee at the cutting edge of bee health, reached out to Professor Morse about reports from eastern Europe that a substance called “oxalic acid” was being used to kill varroa mites. We don’t have his original letter to the bee lab, but we found Morse’s reply. We thought our readers would also enjoy reading Doc Morse’s colorful language about this then-unknown potential miticide.  

Flash forward to today and Betterbee continues to stay at the cutting edge of varroa control. For the 2025 season, our beekeeping and science teams are conducting research projects on new mite control products we hope will be available for beekeepers in the near future. We’re proud to carry on the legacy Bob started when he founded Betterbee almost 50 years ago.