Hello All,

>As I say, I am going by my own experience.  Mite drop was the only
>monitoring
method I used back when I ran thousands of colonies and never lost one to
varroa (to my knowledge).

I remember years ago on BEE-L when Allen said the above. At the time i
thought "Wow I wish I could say the same" but myself and others were in the
fight of our lives with varroa.

My point is that unless you have been in a battle with one of today's
problems ( Allen & varroa today )its very hard to relate.

 Hives crashing and you not being able to figure out a solution is hard.
Many have knocked on my door at these times and we always work through their
problems.

 Most varroa issues come from a failure of the product to control or too
late application. Too late happens many times because of a failure or poor
control the treatment before. A treatment which for whatever reason only
cleared say fifty percent of the varroa will prolong the crash but the
coming crash is inevitable.

 In warm areas like Texas & Florida a poor control in early spring will
leave enough varroa that threshold will be reached quickly . Checking after
a treatment is the most common problem I see.

Treating for varroa *by the calendar* is another problem. With chemical
strips ( checkmite & apistan & apivar when no resistant varroa) the
beekeeper could treat by the calendar.

 Today the math changes with intense brood rearing. A hive in a tree on a
few frames of brood and little nectar coming in can survive longer. The same
swarm placed in a commercial hive and fed 10 pounds of pollen sub and 10
gallons of syrup ( California beeks feed lot feeding before almonds) will
cause the varroa load to explode and the hive need a varroa control in a 2-3
months.

Another issue with varroa is that all varroa are not the same. Little talk
is done by the USDA_ARS (except privately) about varroa in different areas
are so resistant to certain chemicals that its hard to make general
statements about varroa resistant to common mitacides.

many believe that in certain apiaries varroa control with coumaphos was poor
from the start and certainly worthless in three years. This is a total
shocker and has never been fully explained to this day *yet* in some areas
outfits still rotate checkmite with apistan and get control.

Conclusion:
I believe the future of varroa control will be in thymol ,formic and oxalic
. The risk of wax contamination is almost non existent and control can be
had if one sets his/her mind to taking the time.

Important:
We see no signs of the varroa becoming resistant to these products.
I started using these products around fall 2000. I had problems  mostly
temperature related and getting treatments on too late PLUS seeing hives
over threshold fail and *thinking* the failure was due to the soft treatment
not working on hives with high varroa load when the reality was those hives
were goners anyway!

VARROA IS THE WORST PEST TO EVER HIT BEEKEEPING!

Yet beekeepers continue to underestimate the problems varroa can cause.

Hobby beekeepers , leave alone beekeepers , those searching for varroa
tolerant bees & researchers can keep bees without treating for varroa but
those which make a living from bees had better monitor and treat if needed
if they want to run a sustainable business.

Both Randy & myself have said we started a few years ago seeing virus issues
in hives with mite loads way below threshold. Dr. Shiminuki *in my opinion*
would be shocked by this fact and if we ever met again would be the single
most important question I would ask of "Shim".

Why now? What has changed? The viruses? the varroa? the bees?

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

hope the above helps!

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