Hi Dave

>Very good description Dennis, matchs what I have seen very well. Did you say where you thought it came from? 

They picked it up while left with a commercial migratory operation, for two seasons, while I was in Florida.

When I returned from Florida, I worked for this outfit for a couple of months. And I worked the yard my bees were located in. The commercial bees were being overwhelmed with varroa. You could see them scamper across the top bars when the commercial hives were opened. About a third of the hives had PMS. According to the commercial guy, some of those hives had resistant foulbrood. And he had found apis cerana in the same yard. Queen problems abounded there as well.

As a consequence, he was routinely spraying various concoctions and leaving homemade strips at every inspection. It was done in such a manner that it created a human health risk and made me very sick:

http://beenatural.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/commercial-beekeeping-end-of-days/

In contrast, I couldn't visually find a mite or any fecal deposits in any of my hives. No brood disease or other problems were apparent.  I thought my bees were in pretty good shape:

http://beenatural.wordpress.com/small-cell/end-in-sight/

But I was wrong. His hives were just a few years ahead of mine. And in the end we would both misdiagnose what was happening. 

Unlike those commercial hives, my hives never had a mite problem. And only showed foulbrood like symptoms just before they collapsed. I suspect all those chemicals, in the commercial hives, were part of that difference.

On another note, thanks for the bleach idea, Dave.

Regards - Dennis

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