David L. Green wrote:
    If you want something of value, you need to get the queen. Any feral
bees  that are surviving and healthy without varroa treatment, could
possible harbor some genetic resistance to varroa (I haven't found any
yet, but the  potential is there) and that could make the queen quite
valuable.

Actually Dave the above is the reason I took the bees out of the
building wall last spring.  They had been in the building wall four to
five years untreated the owner said.  I STILL charged for the removal.
She would have paid twice what I asked and was pleased with the
removal.  I put the bees in a hive and rubber banded the brood comb in
place.   Everything I did is in the Bee-L archives.   They were still
alive going into winter but still a very small swarm and had gathered
zero honey for winter.  All my other survivors have died over the past
few years in Missouri winter so I put the swarm on a deep box of sealed
honey to winter last September.  Not Dee Lusbys method of doing things
but like you I feel they show some tolerance to varroa and I felt bad
about not treating the swarm with a cure for their problems.
I might add to the post I did that the removal of bees from a building
involves the use of a bee vac to be done correctly. We ALLWAYS use a bee
vac. Start with the bees on the honey comb first and then remove the
honey comb and put in a container and cover to preven robbing. When you
get down to the brood comb start at the outside of the nest and take a
comb at a time and look for the queen then place the brood comb with
bees in cool weather in a container or as we usually do in warm/hot
weather vacum the bees off the brood comb also. You are saving the bees
with the bee vac BUT many bees will die in hot weather if the bees are
not removed in a proper amount of time from the bee vac or the vac is
not large enough to hold the swarm.  When you find the queen  cage her.
Once you find her the process moves much faster. Those are a rough draft
of the process.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa,Missouri