Jeremy wrote:

>On a side-note something else occurred to me a while back that relates to
>locally adapted and treatment free.  If someone is selling treatment-free
>bees, how much might possibly be attributed to frequent splitting and
>associated brood breaks and rapid turnover rather than any actual mite
>resistance.  Just thinking back to some past failures of purchased bees
>that seems to be a common theme many generally now attribute to location.

Personally, I think that's a major contributor.  And, I think it goes a long way towards explaining feral survivor stock and post-capture crash, too.  Bees' preferred 'new home' cavity size averages 35 l. ("Measurement of nest cavity volume by the honey bee (Apis mellifera) - Thomas Seeley, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 30. VI. 1977, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp 201-227).  By the way, how they do that - by repeatedly walking the interior to map it and somehow converting interior surface area to volume (well, more correctly, assessing within or without the boundaries of acceptability, I guess...we convert it to volume), is another amazing little math trick they do that makes bees even more fascinating to me.  But, I digress.  

If my math is correct, the volume of a single 'standard' deep is around 2700 cu in. or 44 l, already on the large size.  Two deeps brings that up to 88 l, and that's without supers.  The huge amount of excess space means they won't get crowded out as quickly.  Coupled with human interference (e.g. clipped queens, destroying queen cells, feeding in a dearth, etc.), and we keep the brood cycle going for over three seasons straight, maybe longer.  In the wild, with the smaller space, the bees will swarm every year, probably multiple times, thus, breaking the brood cycle.  Unless doing 'controlled swarms' - splits - beekeepers try to prevent swarms.  So, take a feral survivor stock that has swarmed 1 - 3+ times per year for several years, move them into a gigantic new home, feed them, and keep them from swarming.  Bang, varroa.

Just my two cents.

Bill

Claremont, NH, USA

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