Kevin,  your observation on the shutdown of the queens is probably much more
involved in your success than you can imagine.  Your getting 2 brood breaks
a year without trying.  I did observe that the hives that did the best with
mites,  had self induced brood breaks.  But overall none of the Local wild
queens did any better or last longer than non locals in my area.

The data I collected shows that timing of the start of the hive (june swarms
vs April splits or packages) Had a lot more to do with mite loads than
queens origins.
FYI  I ran test with 3 groups of queens  12 hives in each group.  Southern
production queens, local survivors, and some VHS queens.   Most the "TF"
names from Beesource were asked to provide queens,  and last year all of
them had reasons not to participate.


While I am sure there are some local survivors doing well,  there is more to
it than just queen genetics in my opinion and testing.

Test I ran show its not if the mites take over,  its when and how. By 18
months unless something is done IE manpulations or splits,  mites are
winning, and the hives die off.  What I didn't know at the time of the APHIS
testing was that the hives we tested were in that death spiral.  The
previous season they had been top honey and brood producers.





>>There is much to consider here... Can you tell us what percentage of your
colonies became clinical?

Hard to say,  what was tested was just 4 colonies.  I would say overall its
been a 5-10% problem.  This years  cold snap in mid May really hosed brood
and took about 20% of the new starts of the table....  I am sure a bit of
the saem issues are also involved as ending the cold snap did not bring them
back.   As randy outlines in his article on sick bees,  once the brood got
chilled,  it sees a rapid decline as foragers are recruited younger... This
season I elected not to equalize the hives to help.  Even the hives that
didn't suffer the huge chilled brood,  I didn't feel were in a position to
donate to the other. (again were talking new starts) so I elected to let
them go without help other than feed.


I do have many many fine hives with good production....  a point I missed
stateing. Pondering a bit if there is a way to isolate and eliminate that
10% issues,  and keep IAPV totally away.
Trying to understand yet if its something always there that comes up at
times,  or if its something I can eliminate somehow.  Or worse yet,  is it
something I propagate and spread??


Charlie

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