Although Danny Weaver does not subscribe to BEE-L, in a circuitous route I
received the following response to Jim Fisher's post titled: "Weaver. [Was:
Hives crashing (was Small Hive Beetle)]".  In fairness to Danny and Weaver's
in general I am forwarding this response to BEE-L.  I apologize to Weavers
for any offense taken in Jim's post.

Danny's response follows.


Dear Jim:

A friend forwarded me your "thought police" anti-BeeWeaver propaganda.
Congratulations!, your brilliant spin on the plain english in our brochure
is quite fantastic.  All the more so, since you obviously didn't even bother
to read what we wrote first.  Please allow me to confuse you with a few
facts.  We've been selecting for Varroa resistance for more than 10 years.
We have not employed chemical treatments for Varroa for more than 3 years.
Many of our colonies have survived much longer without chemical treatment.
And despite no chemical treatment for Varroa, our colonies are strong enough
for us to harvest bees for stocking queen rearing nuclei in February and
March, and strong enough to be shaken again in March and April for packages
too.  After that, our colonies produce a honey crop in Texas or on the
Northern Plains, and some colonies produce a honey crop in both places.  Now
for our 'claims':

First, we have been claiming economically significant levels of mite
resistance in our bees for more than 2 years.  And this year we performed an
experiment to compare our queen's tolerance against other queens in a
commercial apiary setting.  We bought over 1000 colonies from various
beekeepers who had obtained queens from a large number of different queen
breeders around the US.  We removed purchased colonies from chemical mite
treatment (all were purchased after conventional acaricide treatments were
ready for removal, and all strips were removed from those purchased
colonies) upon arrival in Texas.  The purchased colonies were run side by
side with our own colonies in Texas, and 2 other northern states, under
management of several beekeepers - but one basic management scheme.  Requeen
to avoid colony loss when Varroa infestation threatens colony viability.

The results?  BeeWeaver bees produced more honey; >50% more honey in most
cases - than did purchased colonies.  Moreover, some purchased colonies from
California were collapsing from Varroa within 60 days of arrival in Texas,
and could not be sent north for a honey crop.  Other collapsing purchased
colonies were requeened in Texas prior to shipping to the northern plains.
Purchased colonies which were identified as at risk of imminent death from
Varroa during the honey flow on the northern plains were also requeened with
BeeWeaver queens when possible.  Some purchased colonies were not requeened
in the north; but after the honey was pulled, all colonies were returned to
Texas, where 'Foreign' vs. BeeWeaver colony survival and brood populations
were compared.  More than 75% of purchased colonies had either perished, or
had been requeened to avoid colony extirpation by the beginning of
September.  Of the fewer than 25% of foreign queens and colonies that lasted
the honey production season, most had little or no viable brood upon return
to Texas in September and October. All but a handfull of the purchased
colonies have now been requeened to enable colony survival despite Varroa
infestations.  A few colonies were both requeened and treated with a
coumaphos strip on the Northern plains.  The rate of survival of colonies
treated with both coumaphos and new queens was LOWER than rate of survival
after requeening alone.

BeeWeaver has always believed in complete disclosure of risks to our
customers.  We were not the the first beekeeper or queen breeder to develop
parasitic mite infestations.  But we were the first to 'advertise' the fact
that we had tracheal mites, and the first to warn that we had Varroa mites.
Likewise, we acquired Small Hive Beetle like many beekeepers; and not by
purchasing queens or package bees either.  We got the small hive beetle from
other bees and beekeepers who moved their colonies within a few hundred
yards of some of our beeyards - and were allowed to do so by the apiary
inspection services that are purportedly established to protect all of us
from that kind of behavior.  So lets be clear.  If you haven't been exposed
to SHB, and don't wish to risk infestation, then don't buy package bees from
us.  We believe that we can reduce the risk of SHB transmission in queens to
a negligble level, but package bees carry a higher risk.  You all have a
great fall,

Cheers,
Danny Weaver

Daniel Weaver
16481 CR 319
Lynn Grove Road
Navasota, TX 77868
936-825-7312 (t)
936-825-7351 (f)
www.beeweaver.com <http://www.beeweaver.com>

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