a Glenn woemmel snip followed by my comments..
I do not care if someone treats or does not treat.  My opinion is you need to do what works for you and your bees. I am just saying what stuff looks like to me.  I have not treated yet but I may tomorrow.  

>There you go. You sounds a bit like this utilitarian beekeeper... or, 'if it works for you who am I to argue'? I do keep bees here that are untreated (the definition of the word may mean different things to different folks) and I likely the only individual in the group of 'responders' that does so with some numbers.  I shall point out that my bias/hypotensis is that varroa is much like American foul brood in that a solution lies out there without chemical but it is likely a long hard slog between here and that success.  I am very much 'purpose' driven, and I suspect I will not live to witness that success... so I have no idealogical investment in the matter. The long hard slog would make it difficult for any true commercial operation to pay the bills!

I also keep a smaller set of bees at the Texas A&M BeeLab and these bees are treated and in comparing the two groups (they essentially are derived from very different sources) is quite interesting and to some degree informative. First off.. even the treated bees can survive much higher levels of varroa infestation than some folks might wish you to believe.. however normally some beekeeper applied intervention is essential. < I suspect my final analysis on this group is it also demonstrates how import experience is in that these are hive kept for student's projects (almost by definition totally inexperienced) and these folks can kill perfectly good hives in the most inventive ways.

In the past I have also done corporate bee consulting work and I would suggest much of that stock is 'weak' < either from a narrow selection criterion or most likely past 'varroa treatment' contamination of the comb. < since all of these were very much used for pollination services they also have been exposed to a wide range of agricultural chemicals.

Almost lastly (and more related to another thread of a slightly different title) anecdotal evidence is what often drives scientific inquiry... perhaps Mr Marzz and apitherapy might be the best example for this community. Much of what is given as 'evidence' by others throughout that thread is actually nothing more that anecdotal... that is based on little or no evidence and imho looks totally speculative and not to be unexpected tossing past failures on someone else. I guess if you are a hammer everything looks like a nail and in this day and time the only thing that kill a hive is varroa! 

Lastly (yea it finally happens)... we have known for a long long time that the value of bees is pollination... that is the very valuation of pollination is ten fold the value of the honey.  In the past it had been hard to place a real dollar value on pollination services but that is no longer the case. So to some degree things like honey don't really matter when it comes to the value of honeybees. About 40% of this little economic endeavor comes from honey sales and about another 60% from selling bees or queens.. I do not and will not do pollination but this is more due to labor resources than anything else.  The southern US was never a place to capture a large honey crop but in some location was a good habitat for rearing bees. 

Gene in Central Texas...  

  

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