some opinionated thoughts on greg's hive and tim's response:
a colony that survives 5-7 years without any treatments may have some
degree of
tolerance/resistance worth trying to confirm/preserve...what you could be
seeing
at present is a queen supercedure, resulting in some break in the brood
cycle, or
perhaps a late summer swarm requeening with the same effect which has
been
suggested as a natural defense mechanism against disease/parasites, much
as
artificial requeening by beekeepers.
1)check your varroa levels before you attempt any treatment....anything
less than 10%
infestation may be tolerable depending on environmental conditions and
presence/
absence of brood/adult stress symptoms;
2)making a split to prevent swarming at the appropriate time would indeed
be a way
of trying to preserve this strain's characteristics, although with no
guarantees but
again breaking the brood cycle may preempt need for treatments;
3)mixed results with menthol is symptomatic of other "soft" treatments,
such as
essential oils and organic acids...often they can have a repellent effect
on the bees
with brood abandonment and queen balling as possible risks;
4)crawling bees may be the result of viral infections (acute or chronic
paralysis)
activated/vectored by both mites and nosema or other agents, as would
deformed
wings...however, there is not necessarily a correlation between stock
survival and
susceptibility to these pathologies.
 
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