We do not have tracheal mites on Prince Edward Island, as far as we know, and we test a considerable sample of the bees here annually.   There are beekeepers wishing to import queen genetics from areas which do have tracheal mites.   We approved a protocol last year for importing frames with eggs for grafting, as long as those eggs were held away from adults for at least 12 hours.

Now apparently there are beekeepers applying to import capped queen cells,  and they are saying that this is safe and unlikely to import tracheal mites.  

I do not know enough about the biology of tracheal mites to have an informed opinion about this,  and although I intend to find out more, in the meantime I would be interested in hearing the opinions of others, or would appreciate any pointers to good information, or even a good search term to use with the bee-l archives.

Thanks
Stan 

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************