Matthew Westall of Castle Rock, CO wrote (in part):

>While each summer I'm investing a great deal of time pulling out
>surviving feral hives, I'm becoming increasingly at-odds with the logic
>on why these bees are still alive.  How much am I investing in 'chance'?

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   Years ago we noticed no more honey bees foraging within the city limits
of Santa Barbara, which has an ordinance against beekeeping.  A few years
ago, though, we again had foraging bees.  I have checked extensively but
have found no evidence of beekeeping in the city limits.

   A year ago Paul Cronshaw and I began logging swarms when reported and
have recorded swarms all over the city again, even in the downtown region.
Paul has hived many of those feral swarms.  More than a year ago, he and I
removed a very large feral colony from up in a small tree, filled two hive
bodies with the brood combs, and moved those two colonies to a nearby
neighbor's yard.

   Yes, varroa exists in those colonies, but we have not treated it for
more than a year.  Obviously, neither did anyone treat that colony when it
was up in the tree for more than two years.  Today I worked those two
colonies.  Both had swarmed within the last month, but both colonies
thrived --- each with a full deep super of sealed honey (another such super
had been extracted last December).

   I carefully insected the young bees in the brood area of each colony but
saw no varroa mites.  Nor did I see bees with wrinkled wings.

   The upshot:  We could have a rather weak strain of varroa mites in our area.

   All aspects considered, though, it seems to me that we might have a
population phenomenon here --- rather than simply an individual or a colony
selection for resistance to varroa.  If so, tests of any kind run on items
such as hygienic behavior or colony genetic makeup might yield very little.
Those of us somewhat remote from managed colonies might see a resurgence
of resistant feral colony populations --- where queens mate with drones
from similar such colonies.

   Accordingly, Paul has established an apiary in a remote area at the base
of the mountain range behind us, where he is moving all captured swarms
that have survived without treatment.  There the queens and drones from
like colonies can interbreed.

   Unfortunately, this has become a race against time, since the latest
Africanized honey bee find was only 50 miles away.

                                                            Adrian

Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93103

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*     "Nature only answers rightly when she is rightly questioned."

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*                                                      Goethe
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