Peter, just to clarify, St. Pearl is in Newfoundland, Canada?

I wonder if this is part of the rearguard action being fought there to keep Varroa off the island?

FWIW Newfoundland remains Varroa free and they do not permit movement of honey bees onto the island. They have been under intense pressure from the island farmers to allow migratory beekeepers to come in and service the crops as the competition would drop pollination fees, and put to rest any concerns that there are not enough Newfoundland bees to pollinate Newfoundland crops.

A couple of years ago the Newfoundland Beekeepers Assoc. asked for support in letting the provincial government know how important it is to keep Newfoundland Varroa free.  They fended off the move to allow bee imports, but just. One of the points I made in my submission was that if we ever want to create a Canadian bee breeding industry (as presently we are very dependent on imports), Newfoundland would be the obvious place to do that, given their Varroa free status. Not only would running Varroa free be a great benefit to the bees, and spare the beekeeper the cost of mite/mite vectored disease control, the packages going out across Canada would  not be moving mites, possibly super-mites, around. 

And it would be a shame to lose one of the last places where you can keep bees as in the old days...wouldn't we all love to keep bees in a Varroa-free environment.

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