Tom from Ireland posits, “Would I be correct in saying that if America had
to face varroa again with the benefit of hindsight that America would not
have used chemicals so liberally?”

Depending on whom/who [in America] you ask, the answer may vary—-with
correct justification, of course.  My personal take, nevertheless,
is “yes”—-the impossibility of controlling every Tom, Dick, and Harry in
beekeeping notwithstanding.  A while back, I entertained that pathogens in
general seem to go through Hegelian dialectics: initial contact followed
by devastation followed by armistice of sort followed by gradual
recovery.  Actually the process sounds more like “Death and Resurrection”
Motif universal in your compatriot Joseph Campbell’s illustrious books on
Myths.  Having said that, though, I do understand there are exceptions,
though rare, wherein a pathogen can wipe clean out a host species.  But by
not treating the bees at all, one can accelerate the baptism-by-fire
process, thus helping our bees, with no stinking favors.

Sure, one must take desperate measures in desperate times dictated by
his/her circumstances and locations.  It is hard not to.  But there will
be feral bees in the verdant Irish groves, in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
perhaps, that will face mites head on.  But come back they will.  They
must.  According to my casual observations, of collecting swarms for
several years in my area, there are more feral swarms in each year; in
fact, this year I collected more than double [14] of what I had last year
already [7], and am still waiting for the phone to ring.  Of course, it is
impossible to accurately account for all the swarms: the ones that got
away or the ones that nobody noticed, for instance.  However, my friends
in the Deep South seem to experience a similar upswing.

To save the bees, one must treat whichever may be the most effective way
according to his/her location or scale of operation: name all the fine
chemicals and mouth-foaming theories here.  I disbelieve them all.


Yoon

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