This message is relayed from Luis Rommel Beutelspacher. ------------------- Greetings from Southern Mexico !!! I believe one thing has not been cleared concerning varroa resistant = honey bees: WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF VARROA RESISTANT HONEY BEES? How much tolerance is considered "resistant"? There are around 500,000 colonies in the area of Mexico where I live and = I believe that a great portion of this hives are never treated for = varroa, since they are kept by rural beekeepers with very rustic = tecnics. I am fairly new into beekeeping (two years) and I have not = treated any of my hives (included the first 10 that I purchased two = years ago). In how long is varroa supposed to kill a hive? After how = long of having varroa in a hive is this considered "resistant"? The hives seem to be working normally and the original 10 hives have now = 3 supers on and will yield a very good honey crop in a few weeks. I = have seen varroa in many of my hives but they don't seem to diminish the = population in a noticeable way. I had a visit from Mr. Ken Hoare from England last week (Thanks to = Bee-L). He used to work as an bee inspector for many years in UK. He = looked at those original 10 hives and graded them as "In excellent = shape". He didn't even think of them to be aggresive !!! One last comment. I have recently started my queen rearing operation, = and bought a few queens from some suppliers from northern Mexico to use = as breeding queens. These are not as africanized as the ones we usually = work with. I have noticed in my breeding apiary a little more varroa = than on the other apiaries. I believe that the africanized strain that = we usually have here in Yucatan might be some what "resistant" to = varroa. Wish you all happy honeying ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Luis Rommel Beutelspacher (\ Maya Honey S.A. de C.V. -{|||8- Ticul, Yucat=E1n, M=E9xico. (/ Tel/Fax (997) 20715 [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com