Hi Trevor and all

>The other point is that if allowed to establish, then there is that great
> reservoir for varroa if it finally makes it ashore.
>

If varroa made it ashore then all feral bees would be a reservoir.  Unless
the swarm making it ashore was immediately identified, you would likely be
no more able to eradicate varroa than any other place has  been.   I do see
that having feral cerana makes it harder to know when a new incursion of
cerana that might be carrying mites occurs.

I am curious about this Java strain of cerana, because here in the
Philippines where I am presently it is fairly close to Indonesia.  The
cerana here are, like Peter Edwards said, quite docile.  I transferred a
hive from the trunk of a coconut tree to a nuc box with no protective gear
at all except smoke, and no stings.  With no smoke I did find some hives a
bit testy when opening the lids.

I do see that mailboxes might be problematic, because cerana seem to like a
smaller cavity than mellifera.

Stan

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