>>>I find the same with the Russian bees.  Could you please tell us more about
what you observe with brood breaks in Kansas City area?  And also whether
your apiaries are in agricultural or wild areas.

Land is mixed about 1/3 suburban, 1/3 agricultural, 1/3 native prairie and woods. From a forage standpoint I guess you would say our local bees are in a wild area; clover, tree blossums, dandelions, and wildflowers make up our flow. Bees do pick up a little from soybeans. The ferals have a lot of nice mature hardwoods and older homes for nesting sites. 

They seem to be surviving and spreading on their own, I've been following 4 active beetrees for 3 years and have caught swarms from the same trees 2 years in a row and they are still alive going in to this winter. But, we do have a lot of hobby beekeepers in the area, so their population is being supplemented and it's hard to say how long some of them have been feral. Onced hived it's pretty easy to tell them apart. 

As far as brood breaks we are getting a three a year from hives that will shut down their brood production from what I can tell. Early winter, when they swarm in the spring, and during our mid-late summer dearth. Our summer dearth is a hard one lasting about 2 1/2 months and it very common to see late summer - early fall supercedures. A lot of requeening going on. I do feel like our blazing summer heat helps the bees and hurts the mites. Natural fall mite counts on days when it's over 105 degrees often exceed 70 or 80 mites a day. 

I didn't do mite counts in the spring like I should have, so I have no early season data. 

My 2 year old hives had a pretty significant level of mites in early July like I detailed, but September counts look tolerable.

Winter will tell, hopefully losses will be less than the 25% or so that I had last year.

Thanks    ....Don

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