I posted a similar note some weeks ago but this one has a slight
twist I found interesting.
        A beekeeper in central NY state running several hundred colonies
reports extensive winter losses due to varroa. Last spring he purchased 5
frame nucs from the south. The nucs were hived in April and immeadiatly
given a single, new Apistan strip, properly hung between the frames. The
colonies grew well and in mid June he removed the strips before supering.
At that time he did ether rolls in each yard and could find very few
mites. When he began honey harvest in mid August, just 8 weeks later he
found his colonies dying already. Each had several supers of honey but
most had few bees. Many bees were crawling at the entrance and they were
heavily infested with varroa. I tend to belive the problem was
reinfestation because its unlikly the mites could reproduce that fast. But
maybe the mites are changing and they can ?
 
        Central NY again. State inspector reports finding hives that had
 rescently died (mid summer). The hives had no live bees, lots of honey
and thousands of varroa running over the frames ("like fleas") apparently
living on remaining brood. He also observed many bees robbing the honey
and speculates they were picking up hitchhikers to bring home.
 
        Western NY - commercial beekeeper observed while scraping his
deadouts , hives with "bee parts" strewn over the top bars and on the
frames. He stated "it was like they fell apart". I'm wondering if this
could be septicemia ? Is any one out there familiar with this ?