>well the two implicit question would be for me are 1)what is the definition of viable and 2) what kind of individual survival time line would you use as evidence to suggest this statement is not true?

Gene, In my statement I tried to equate treatment and control in reference to Pete's citation. Sugar, drone removal, brood break, artificial swarm, screened bottoms, perhaps switching to AHB's, even intense queen selection, and all the other non-chemical methods are in my mind treatments/controls. If a beekeeper is successful in maintaining colony survival by such means they have my admiration. I will let Webster define viable.

a : capable of living, a : capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately, 
b : capable of existence and development as an independent unit, The colony is now a viable state.
c (1) : having a reasonable chance of succeeding, : financially sustainable,  a viable enterprise

I maintain that without varroa control in some successful form beekeeping as a profession or hobby is not viable. 
  
The experiment as to the survival of Apis m. sans all varroa control ever is thankfully no longer an option. Feral colonies and populations that are maintaining now are, I believe, descended from managed colonies that beekeepers got past the first emergency. If there had never been control the initial collapse of feral colonies would have been matched in managed colonies and the global population may have fallen below recoverable levels even if extinction had not yet occurred. Australia is a question, what say mates?  I do not have the educational credentials to defend that opinion and put it out only to spur conversation. It beats shoveling snow and scraping boxes at any rate. :-)

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA 

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