Here's a question for you guys to to think about overnight while i get my
sleep:

In Sweden, varroa is slowly spreading over the country. Authorities are
trying to slow down the spread by some laws: the country is divided into
zones.
Zone 1 is where varroa has been found. No restriction on moving bees inside
the zone, but absolutely no moving outside the zone or to an other zone 1
across other zones.
Zone 2 to is around the borders of zone 1. No varroa found, hard
restrictions on moving bees and related material.
Zone 3 is a buffer zone around zone 2, with ligt restrictions on moving bees
and stuff.

The map of zones is redrawn a couple of times per year as varroa is found in
new areas.

Among other things, this is causing problems for queen breeders. Before
varroa, there were mating areas, often on little islands, where there were
no bees kept within at least 10 kilometers. Selected colonies were put in
the area to provide good drones and then the virgin queens in their mating
nucs were also put there to mate with a controlled drone population. As the
queen breeders home areas became zone 1, 2 or 3, they can no longer mate
their queens in mating areas outside their zone.

Now here's the background to the question: There's a mating area on an
island in zone 2. No varroa found, but it's found within 25 kilometers. One
of these queen breeders told me, they'll be populating the mating nucs with
worker bees from colonies in the mating zone and then bring in only the
sealed queen cells. The theory is that varroa mites will never go into a
queen cell. Is this a correct assumption?

/Mats Andersson, Stockholm Sweden