I am sure Seeley accurately reported his results.  The problem is, at least in my experience, winter one tells me nothing about untreated wild swarms.  What matters is winter two at the earliest and particularly winters three thru five.  I have seen very high survival in year one with swarms I thought were ferals.  They went into a dedicated apiary with nothing else.  People did have domestics 2 miles N and three miles east and 3/4 mile SW and two hives a neighbor had about 200 yards from my hives.  So lots of chances of domestic drones getting in the breeding mix.  One year the first winter survival was five out of five swarms that I believed were ferals.  By the end of winter three all were dead due to mites.  Splits made in year two and three also died at very high rates in winter three.  Like 80%.  So, what should I conclude from Seeley's data?

Of course we have all heard versions of this story over and over.  Particularly we have heard it from vocal TF advocates who do not monitor or treat in any way and who live where there is a winter.  The story goes like this:  Just ignore the mites and the bees will survive and get strong genetics and mites will not be a problem.  Then about year three or four or five the story goes like this:  The farmers are using so many pesticides where I live it is getting real hard to keep bees as last winter I lost 80% or 90% to pesticide kills and will have to rebuild.
I know several TF guys who do great.  They live where there is little to no winter.  I know of a guy who claims he uses no chemicals at all to kill mites.  The problem is he is not a chemist and when I asked him what he did it became very obvious he was hammering his colonies with unapproved natural chemicals.  I know migratory guys who do ok with hives that left in my apiary to winter would without question be dead by spring.  How do those hives survive?  They are someplace with a very mild and short winter like central Florida.  If I had a winter six weeks shorter life would be far easier.  Most of my winter deaths are in March and April.  I do not think I have lost a hive before Jan 1 in five years, even in winters when my death rate was 75%.  This year I even started feeding pollen patties in Feb so they would raise enough young bees to have some left when the old ones died. It may have worked.  I had 100% survival.  But, one winter proves nothing.

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