>Any thoughts?

After years of research on varroa I came to many conclusions.

One of the first was to realize that most feral colonies survive varroa by
maintaining small brood nests and shutting down brood rearing several times 
a
year so not surprised by your success Joe.

*In my opinion* if you introduce a prolific Italian queen you will also see
an increase in varroa population. I base this on my testing many advertised
*varroa tolerant lines* with added varroa pressure ( as taught to me by Dann
Purvis).

One must understand there is a huge difference between the existence of a
feral colony and the hive used in a commercial migratory operations. Most
feral colonies I have observed maintain around four frames of brood and the
nest size depends on flows and cavity space.

In a commercial operation the bees are moved on to flows ( In Florida 6-7
per year) and in my area we start creating an artificial flow as early as
February till the main flow starts and maintain a flow until the fall flow
starts. Such intense brood rearing also causes intense varroa rearing.

I am glad you are seeing an increase in the feral population Joe even if
there is no way to tell if some are from this years beekeeper swarms. Bees
reuse the same bee trees year after year so  its
hard to tell what is feral and what is from a new swarm.

Still glad to hear you are seeing many ferals and less varroa!

bob

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