>I believe the treatment-free folks claims, and I am not saying anyone is a liar, but for their success to be scientifically relevant, it must be replicated by other researchers. Repeatedly. Replication is crucial.

Not sure that it works that way for varroa as the big problem (or not) is the viral load.  I have seen colonies with thousands of mites that survive quite happily in the absence of DWV (in India), yet where DWV is present a thousand mites can be an unsustainable load.

Now we also know that there are different strains of DWV and have recently learned that some who are completely treatment free simply have the benign strain - lucky them!

There is no way in my view that can be replicated repeatedly - all beekeeping is, as they say, local and much of the ability to claim treatment free may just be because you are fortunate enough to live in a particular area.  Move those colonies to another location and they might well collapse.

Varroa tolerance seems to be a completely separate issue and I am not convinced that anyone has yet been able to go completely 'treatment free' because they have developed totally tolerant bees.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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