"There is a lot of talk about his on other bee discussion venues and many are
claiming that they have gone years without treatment and their bees are
fine. I am quite sure some do. As to how and why it works for some and not
for others, I am much less sure.
Many who do so do not monitor for mites and I have no idea how observant --
or honest -- most are.
<snip>
Most of the reports are anecdotal and so there is no way to assign any
statistics to them and bias is almost certain."
Well, I'll admit to being one of ones who has been pretty lazy about tracking varroa and who has been "playing" around with breeding for control. In the past I have used strips, FGM0, essential oils, etc., but never found a good alternative to the harsher treatments, like strips. However, after reading about flash formic treatment on this list, I decided to give it a try. I'm going to post separately about my results and my impressions (which are both very positive), but I just wanted to comment here about the variability of breeding for control, at least in my experience. One of the cool things about FF treatment is that it is also a method of measurement. You can get a good sense of the degree of infestation in a hive based on the drop after the first treatment. It's not an exact science, and my experience is limited, but just looking at my small apiary, I could draw some initial conclusions (for example, rather than trying to count every mite, I grouped my hives into three categories for degree of infestation), and I had a couple of pleasant surprises. Two of my hives had drop counts of less than 10. These were descendants of Minnesota Hygienic queens crossed with NWC bees. And, they were mixed in with a line of hives that had counts of up to >100 per drop.
Are they just lucky? Would they survive without treatment? I don't know. I did give them a second flash treatment along with all of the other hives. The counts for those hives with the same - almost zero - equal to the results from my VSH queen. So, I did not treat them on the third cycle. I am still waiting (and hoping) to do the fourth and final treatment this weekend. If they look good in the spring (I have not opened the hives to see if the queens have survived – too cold now for that kind of disruption), I may try breeding from them as well as from my VSH queen. Statistically significant? No. Anecdotal? Yes. But within the context of my own hives the variability is really interesting. And if it can be so variable in one small apiary, then how variable (and consequently how hard) can it be to breed for consistent results on a national/global level? My hat goes off to those who can do it.
###################################
Bill Greenrose
Claremont, NH
+43.35687 +43° 21’ 25”
-72.3835 -72° 23’ 01”
CWOP: D5065
Weather Underground: KNHCLARE3
HonetBeeNet: NH001
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