> We have not detected mites in the hives which remained isolated from other
> hives by 20 km or more so I doubt the original hives had any mites. We did
> however detect mites at the end of august 2011 in 2 of the 6 hives which
> were located within 3 km of other hives brought in for blueberry
> pollination. The beekeepers on the island of NewFoundland have their hives
> certified every year by outside inspectors.

 Kristine the list always wishes the best of luck to those willing to
attempt a different approach.
That said I have been on the front lines of the varroa issue since the first
varroa mites were found in the U.S. over two decades ago.

My observation two decades ago has not changed. I said to beekeepers in the
U.S. which has been true.

"There are two kinds of beekeepers in the U.S.. Those with varroa in their
hives and those which are going to find varroa in their hives".

Allen has done a excellent job of explaining taking usually three years to
find varroa in hives and by then hard to control with soft treatments. My
friends in  Hawaii listened to all the varroa presentations but when varroa
was found researchers said varroa had been in Hawaii at least three years.

I really expect the same scenario in Australia when (not if) varroa is
found.

Eradication of varroa has not happened and was doomed from the start
although some USDA-ARs disagreed with me at the start. Quarantines were put
on migratory beekeepers stopping temporarily important pollination while
varroa infested package bees and queens were still being shipped?

A huge amount of money was wasted *on stopping the spread*.

Smart commercial beekeepers do not try to eradicate varroa but rather keep
knocking varroa back to levels the bees can handle.

When queen breeders ( not queen producers) find a line of bees which can
handle varroa untreated and are similar to the bees we are using most of us
will buy queens and convert over.

Unless:

We have to keep going back to the same source for these expensive queens
every year to maintain varroa tolerance. If so most of us will simply
control varroa and move on.

I have always been puzzled by commercial beekeepers which spend huge
amounts of money on the latest varroa tolerant *supposedly* queens when they
plan to control varroa and treat three or four times a year.

If you are going to treat how do you know the queens are varroa tolerant?

Of course those beekeepers can come up with many reasons why the money is
spent soundly but when you requeen yearly or up to four times a year as some
do its hard for me to see the logic.

bob

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