From: "Bob Harrison" "I have not found a single commercial beekeeper using
4.9mm cell size, FGMO or
> screened bottom boards"

Small cell is understandable as it means changing frames.  FGMO means extra
work fogging weekly.  But screened bottoms is a simple one-off alteration to
equipment that provides the beekeeper with inportant information on the
degree of infestation, and som points to colonies making progress towards a
natural balance - and in particular allows the odd case of re-invasion to be
caught before the abnormally high level of infestation spreads.  So that is
much more difficult to understand.

'The Varroa Handbook' documents the early response of commercial beekeepers
to discovery of varroa - 'just give us a quick fix so we can carry on as
usual'.  The chemical culture followed.  Have commercial beekeepers still
not learned how important it is to find a really long-term sustainable way
to acheive a balance between bee and pest?

The planet is some 4,500,000,000 years old; modern humans are perhaps 50,000
years old;  varroa have been with us for only 20 or less years (during which
the quick fix has contaminated bee stocks, wax and whatever), the planet has
some further 4,500,000,000 to go before being engulfed by the sun - how much
longer do commercial beekeepers expect to just go on with chemical
treatments and no monitoring of levels of infestation in order to start
selecting the more resistant stocks?  Another 10 to 20 years  (enough to see
them out perhaps)?    Another 100 years?  Another 500,000 years? Even to the
end of time for Planet Earth, 4,500,000,000 years?   Or do they plan to
change - but not today?

Robin Dartington

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