I guess I'm being arguementative here, as if fact I agree with what Allen
says when he writes, "When putting on Apistan(r) or whatever, shoving in a
sticky board at the same time will show which hives have fewer mites -- or
none.  Those hives are the ones -- IMO -- that stand the best chance of
surviving without treatment in the future."

This is probably so, but possibly not.  It is likely that the sticky boards
with the fewest mites identify the hives that have a diathesis for mite
resistence.  But there is also a possibility that a hive so identified has
fewer mites as a fluke.  One cannot assume they have a golden hive based on
relatively clean sticky boards.  Perhaps the mites were vacationing in New
Jersey when the treatments went in.

The fewer mites hives are good candidates for selective breeding for those
beekeepers who are involved enough to be doing their own selective breeding,
but for sustained positive results the progeny of those selected breeders
must be evaluated for their mite resistence (or not), and EVERY SUBSEQUENT
QUEEN and her colony must be evaluated for THEIR mite resistence (or not).
It's not like once you hit on a resistent hive the problem is solved.
Continuing efforts will ALWAYS be necessary to ensure that what was there in
one generation remains there in subsequent generations.  Such is the wonder
of open mated queens, such is the caution beekeepers need to be aware of
when they are purchasing tauted "SMR" queens.  There will be very few queen
advertisements by New Year's 2002 that do not contain "SMR" in the ad.

Aaron Morris - thinking Caveat emptor!