>>>Could you please tell us what area you are in, and whether there is any
Africanization in your area?

--- I'm in Kansas City. We don't have any Africanized bees in our area that I'm aware off. Our local ferals are not bad tempered at all.

>>> I also notice that hot, dry weather is really tough on mites.  How do your
bees do in non drought years?

--- Don't know, I'm just a 2nd year beekeeper. Last year I noticed the same drop in my September mite counts after our late July to early September dearth period. July natural fall counts were totally different, generally in the 20 - 40 mites a day range with some hives over 50. Thanks for your Varroa population curve article, taught me to know when I have a hive out of line and need to take action.

FWIW, let's look at the big picture.  The honey bee population in North
America is in the middle of an evolutionary transition from being varroa
naive to eventually being varroa tolerant.  I feel that there should be
little debate that at some point in the future the bee population of N.
America will be predominately resistant to varroa.

The percentage of treatment-free beekeepers is a simple way to document
this transition.  To me, this is more interesting that arguing for or
against treatment free--I'm just interested in following the progression of
an expected course of evolution.

--- Michael, Dee, Dean & Ramona, and others are doing a great job of leading the way and showing us how.  

--- Preliminarily from what I can tell here with our local ferals, the most important thing to treatment free management is to not feed or suppliment. Brood breaks at least in my area are a critical component of how they are dealing with the mites.

Appreciate all your hard work Randy, I've read and studied most your articles. 

Don

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm