>
> >Major differences in climate.  Your bees are building now for aug
> collapse,  ours won't start building till march 1 at best.  Which is late
> oct/ November collapse Normally frozen by then (not this year).  As they
> say  beekeeping is local!


Charlie, that observation couldn't be more appropriate!  I was working on
an article last night (on the biology of the colony post the main honey
flow), and came to that exact realization.  Huge differences.  In the
north, winter may begin almost immediately after the summer flow, whereas
in my area, there may be four months remaining until the colonies reach the
point of minimal brood.

Take home message--one must be very careful about generalizing anything
about beekeeping!

That said, due to the often high degree of drift between colonies, there is
still the potential for a few highly-infested colonies to influence the
mite levels of other colonies in the apiary, even if those colonies have
not (yet) collapsed.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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