> Aug is the only month mites migrate?  Only in aug do other hives collapse?  All over the country??  And when they do collapse  all those mites suddenly realize they need to go to your hive??  Not the neighbors  but yours??  

Honestly, I don't know how you got from what I said, to all of the above. The paper I cited was merely an early example of research that was inspired by the observation that mites spike in hives that had few or no mites in the weeks prior to the spike. There are better ones out there, but I already said that it is nearly impossible to prove. 

The suggestion that I am blaming someone else for my problems, is completely out of line in this case. I have never done that, in fact it was only until respected researchers began to suggest that treatment free and treatment late beekeepers were a huge source of mite migration, that I began to think seriously about it. 

This is certainly not the first time we have discussed it here at Bee-l but it is the first time someone has gone to such lengths to ridicule the concept. There isn't one person on this list that would challenge the statement that "beekeeping is local." However, certain things are also happening all over, and it's intellectual curiosity that drives us to seek explanations. 

PLB

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