> My experience eliminating treatments since 2001 has been that it is very difficult to do successfully without a population of bees in the locality that has developed resistance to mites. I had not realized the great degree that the characteristics and health in the local population of bees affects the individual colony in the apiary.

Good post. This deserves repetition. Sort of like the real estate
mantra of the three key points in selling your house are location,
location, location. Same with beekeeping. All beekeeping is local.
With a healthy feral population and few if any local beekeepers you
can have great success in keeping bees. You get diversity, some mite
resistance (at least hoped for) and location acclimatized bees.

Joe seems to have that.

Not me. In our area there are no feral bees except the swarms cast off
by local beekeepers. Plus, those who are nearby and do not treat are
creating Varroa repositories. I would have more faith in their
non-chemical beekeeping if it really resulted from Varroa tolerant
bees. Instead they capture swarms in the spring as their bees died off
that winter. The not so funny part of this is they are probably my
bees since mine make it through the winter (except the year I tried
small cell and did not treat), and I know they are not Varroa
tolerant. So the beekeeper is capturing my swarms, calling them feral
(which they actually are) keeping them chemical free, and growing
Varroa to infest my bees. Don't you love beekeeping!

I actually did do well with minimum treatments ( one oxalic treatment
in November) when there were few local beekeepers, but not now, when
there are a bunch.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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