> The area we're talking about is from Sept Iles and north to Natashquan where the road stops. And while the question should perhaps be whether or not beekeeping should be attempted there that hasn't really been the question as the producers up there are interested in beekeeping.

Hi 

I am very glad you came here to discuss this, as it is a very interesting situation. I believe that you could bring bees into the area and have very little trouble containing varroa mites. They would have to be free or nearly free of mites to begin with and you would have to be very vigilant in checking them, at least at first. 

How you would manage the hives against varroa would be up to you, of course. I would think that a thorough knockdown with formic acid or such would reduce the baseline to near zero. Then, if you saw any colonies with mites coming on, you could use a soft control like thymol (ApiLife Var). 

Or-- you could go with zero tolerance.  This would involve putting down any colonies with mites. They could be safely put down with food grade CO2 and the hives could be restocked. A third possibility would be to use nucs and run them for one season only, keeping only colonies that remained mite-free and selling the others up the river.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm