> > >In my opinion varroa alone are devastating. Adding the disease they > spread only make them more so. I don't see evidence to support this opinion. In the first years of invasion by varroa in every region for which I've spoken with beekeepers (and based upon my own observations), colonies were able to recover from mite infestation rates in fall of up to 1 mite per bee (100 mites per 100 bees). All one needed to do was to knock the mites back to close to zero, and the colony would chug on just fine. This evidence tends to refute the hypothesis that mites alone are that harmful to colonies. -- Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** 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