> Do hives (or feral colonies) that are not in close proximity to others suffer such an influx? Chris

One of the things that Tom Seeley observed in feral colonies living in the forest was the low levels of mites. At first they theorized some sort of genetic variant, but this was disproved when they moved the stock to the lab where there is a high colony density. 

He has done some work in siting isolated colonies and has shown mite levels build much more slowly than when colonies are in apiaries. He has moved on to studying the possibility that unmanaged colonies which swarm annually have lower mite predation due to never really building up to the massive size of properly managed hives. 

But I don't think they have abandoned the idea that isolated colonies tend to be healthier than those in apiaries. Still, that's a bit of a no-brainer. Disease transmission is generally exacerbated by crowded conditions. Bailey was talking about this decades ago. In the final analysis, both commercial and small scaled beekeeping will continue, even if they require different methodologies.

PLB

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