>I often wonder about the sequence and description
of events around the collapse of the ferals in the UK.

Locally, varroa arrived in 1997.  In the next couple of years we noticed 
that swarms, once abundant, had reduced dramatically in number and those 
that we did get were much smaller.

Membership of our Association dropped from 112 in 1997, reaching a low of 44 
before starting to recover  when all the media hype started.  We are now 
back to 85.

Some of the newer or smaller or less-interested beekeepers gave up, but the 
stalwarts generally managed to keep up numbers, probably because they were 
looking after their colonies better and were able to replace losses.  This 
improved husbandry also included better swarm control; with bees becoming 
more valuable we became more interested in not losing any swarms - and this 
no doubt had an effect on feral colonies which were succumbing to varroa and 
not then being replaced from 'domesticated' stock.  This situation still 
applies: my swarm control is as rigorous as I can make it - and at the same 
time I, and our local Bee Improvement Group, are breeding for less swarmy 
bees.

Best wishes

Peter
52º11'39.10"N 1º40'26"W
P.S. I have changed these co-ordinates slightly - Google Earth seems a bit 
woolly to say the least - the numbers it gave when I placed the cursor on 
the centre of my roof gave a house 15 doors away when re-entered.  Google 
maps enabled me to keep changing the co-ordinates until I got back to where 
we live. 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm