I know some of your weaknesses quite well. A closed mind where anything other than 'investigated at craibstone' and a few other telling foibles.
Apart from the varroa thread, I note your post re queen excluders - being very generally dismissive of the OP. I actually am astute enough to understand why queen excluders are part of your system, but others may not even think about the simple underlying reason. In fact I doubt whether many have even given it a thought - but a few will now, hopefully.
You said, quote 'I find them an essential tool of my operation.' .
Not really surprising in your particular and 'non-regular' system of operation, is it?
I was commenting, as innocuously as possible, on your apparent intransigence and disbelief of the other beekeeper, where other systems of hive management were offered as a way forwad for overcoming the varroa problem, but anything from your 'associates of 25 years' is gospel.
I am not disbelieving the claims, but just find the difference in attitude somewhat disparate, depending on the situation. If you can't get your head around a well documented and widely reported 'anomaly', don't knock it without giving it some really well considered thought, is what I think - and others need to question the reasons for the apparent total disbelief of a different system being better in some ways than the present state of affairs (which is far from ideal).