From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>

>There is a very good reason to check for mites...people lack intellectual curiosity, which I am sure you don't. 

well, i'm curious about a lot of things, but i have limited time and resources, as we all do.  for the same reason beekeepers don't routinely test for the presence of "stress diseases" that are present in many (if not most) colonies, dwv for example, i'm not really concerned about whether there are mites in the hive, i'm concerned about survival (as a first step...once that is established, production comes next).  

there is a study that i looked at recently (the details escape me at the moment...can anyone else place it?) that if i'm remembering correctly, looked at selecting bees for the amount of brood the queen lays vs. selecting for honey production.  selecting for straight production was found to be more useful if one wants honey production.  i'm sure that if one is looking to shake out packages, sell nucs, or get top dollar at the almonds that honey production wouldn't be the single most important factor.  my point is one really has to figure out what one's goals are.  my goal at this point is survivability, honey production and temperment are much less important, and other factors (number of mites, propolis production, etc) i'm not even looking at.

so, while i can appreciate the desire to know if the issue is mite reproduction or mite tolerance, to me doing what i'm doing, it's as irrelevent as if some specific microbe is present in my compost pile...if the food scraps are turning into rich soil, i don't really care what the details are.  counting mites is irrelevent to my own personal goals.

>By the way, I don't know who your inspector is, ...is not too bright.

well, ken and i certainly don't see eye to eye on many, many issues, but in this instance, i think this is an unfair assessment.  i've been on inspections with him, so i know what he is generally seeing, and the practices he recommends.   almost everyone in this area is a hobbyist with less than 4 hives.  varroa are almost always found by uncapping a few cells, and treatment (apistan) is recommended across the board for everyone here.  not finding any mites by uncapping some drone brood is very unusual, and likely why he said he saw one mite last year (even though i don't think he did).  i've never seen a migratory top in worcester county (everyone uses telescoping tops), so dealing with the inspection report (and tucking it under the cover) has been working for 30 years.  at least the part the bees ate (that was under the cover), was the name and address...not the inspection data itself.

i will also say, that my understanding is that when he took over as inspector in 1976, there was something like a 40% AFB rate in the county (!!!!).  his first year, they were burning hives every night, and now he inspects virtually every colony in the state every year, and most years finds no more than 1 or 2 cases....in a state where treating is allowed, this is astounding.  he also has gained the trust of beekeepers here, and there is no resistance to him inspecting hives without the beekeeper present.

deknow

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