<the following is heavily edited for brevity>
 
>    Regarding drone drift:
 
>    drones drifted extensively
>    within a yard, less to nearby yards,  but were not found in yards
>    further than 1 km or half a mile away.
 
>    It looks to me like there is certainly something that distributes varroa
>    around, more than the conventional drift model would suggest. In B.C.,
>    the distribution of varroa in an apiary (and in a region) has been much
>    more uniform, even during the very initial stages, than was the case
>    with tracheal mites.
 
FWIW - At the Alberta Beekeepers Association convention, a speaker mentioned
the following anecdote, which I repeat without attribution as just that:
 
As a test, a US beekeeper shook some bulk bees from one of his yards and then
sprinkled flour on them.  He then drove through another county where he
had bees and threw some of them off the truck here and there along the
highway.
 
A survey shortly thereafter revealed bees with flour on them at hives as far
away as one and one half miles from the release points!!!!
 
This might have some implications regarding loads of supers on the way to
the honey house on open trucks and loads of bees on their way to
pollination, I think. Comments?
 
Allen
 
 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                      VE6CFK
Rural Route One, Swalwell,  Alberta  Canada  T0M 1Y0
Phone/Fax: 403 546 2588      Email: [log in to unmask]