In a message dated 1/12/2005 6:30:50 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

>False, there are in fact feral honey bees surviving without any beekeeper
help.

    Not in my neck of the woods.  My interested in beekeeping stemmed from my
garden and apple trees failing to produce.  Of the three beekeepers in town,
with a total of four hives, two of those hives had just been lost to mites.
When I was a kid, hives in the fields used to be a common site here and they
are all gone now.  On the bright side, my exposure to mites and American
Foulbrood are really low right now.

    The answer to Varroa may not come from feral populations, labs,
commercial or organic breeders.  Possibly a combination of all of the above.  When all
the nonresistant bees die out (or are allowed to die out) we will be left with
a stock to work with.  The point of requeening with resistant queens is lost
when she is superseded by a new queen mated with your neighbors treated
drones.  Packages of resistant bees coming to me from Texas may not pan out in a New
England enviroment. e.g. Yugo.  Ultimately the "super bee" will evolve
regionally from resistant stocks.  When there are less nonresistant bees to feed on,
there will be less Varroa present.

    The bees need time and possibly a little assistance to adjust to the
Varroa assault.  A combination of breeding and IPM plans will keep beekeeping
alive until a "super bee" evolves.  I'm all for letting the bees do their own
thing, but these are hard times.

    IPM plans do not necessarily have to include chemical treatments.  They
would include anything you can do to put stress on Varroa, or make your hives
unpalatable to them.

Jim Hock
Wethersfield, CT

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