> I am inclined to equate some beekeepers attitude to beetles the same as a
> cattleman, who finding a dead cow in a paddock, blames the cloud of
> blowflies for the death.
> 
> I find that thought to be a bit off the mark,   Just because you have
> never
> been attacked by a shark,  doesn't mean sharks don't attack.  It means you
> were not at the right place at the right time.

I am struggling to see any similarity.
> 
> I personally tend to listen closely especially to those who are willing to
> share their experiences, and assume they have a different experience.

Which of course is why I shared mine and colleagues experience.

> In the case of AUS  you guys have a few tools in your box we don't.
> Fiprinol traps,

The fipronil traps work exceptionally well. Almost 100%.  So I set out a
number in a site randomly to compare the benefit.  No obvious difference
between hives.  I did the same with nucs made up with no empty comb.  Again
no discernable difference.  If I was to breed queens again for fee and
reward, I feel I would use them as one tends to make mating nucs a little on
the 'weak' side to assist acceptance of subsequent cells.

> different soils  lots of things are different,

Well, yes, most of my local stuff is 20 million years old.  No ice to grind
up the rocks.  The main difference though is that in most of Australia we
work bees 365 days a year if one wishes to shift, and occasionally without
shifting.

> In your case, if you don't think they are reproducing in the hive, where
> do you suspect they come from?

Feral hives.  I suspect that here there could be reproduction in the dross
at the bottom of the hive.  I intend to set up a tree type hive to check
what happens, but then again I have intended to do it for about three years.

>so if they were not reproducing,

On a number of occasions I have seen large numbers of them flying in to the
site on dusk.  A couple of mates have seen the same thing.  Most were
entering hives on the front corner of the site, but inspection days later
did not show any marked difference in numbers in those hives by the time of
the inspection. 

Geoff Manning

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