Hi Dennis
One of my best friends has not treated for mites in many years. He runs around 150 hives on average. He has told me that he loses a lot of bees, but that he just keeps dividing the ones the are left and requeens with mite resistant queens he raises. 

Keeping bees without chemicals is a lot more work, I suppose. More than one hour per hive per year! But there is the satisfaction of a job well done, and the sense of being part of the future -- instead what's left of an outmoded past.

Pete

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