On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Peter Loring Borst  wrote:

> Hi all
> Supposedly African and Africanized bees are naturally resistant to varroa.
> I guess it's not the case in Mexico:
>

Neither at Perú.

The company I'm working with struggled for 10 year to grow to 1000
colonies. After a year an a half we are at 5500 colonies. Basic have been
controling varroa and giving good nutrition.

THE academic reference had Perú convinced to use sugar+oxi+oxalic as a way
to control varroa, je je. He said they have EFB while in reality was PMS.
We took oxi out. We did a first coumaphos treatment to start and more than
4000 varroas droped on average in each colony. Since then we have been
monitoring and use one treatment with Monoxalate. No more EFB/PMS so far.

They also have serious agrotoxic problems. Tropics are a fantasy in terms
of plagues and the small properties mean many people applying differente
agrotoxics. Not an easy space to work. We are quite isolated so was enough
to perfect the use of insecticides with in the farm (night applications and
change to a product with low hour of permanence).

The colonies when I arrive have less than 1000 bees per frame. Now we are
arriving to 1500 bees per frame. I guess that is due basically because of
balanced nutrition and the incorporation fo egg to the formula.

Our next objetive is lowering aggressivity. I have a theory and time will
tell if we are correct. We will start that next march.

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