a Paul Hosticka snip followed by > my comment...
Collapsing feral and unmanaged colonies are no doubt the source. The influx is far from uniform but enough colonies test above threshold after treatment that unless one is able to test every colony and treat accordingly another "post frenzy" treatment is needed.

>Well Paul I would first say that there is in my mind serious doubt about what you call 'no doubt'.  Matter of fact I would classify that as pure speculation.  This is not to say I have any doubt that some varroa from some hives go somewhere but where they come from and where they go is anyone guess. Perhaps we need to create a list of what potentially could have gone wrong (with all of the mite treatments) and start any discussion on any explosion in mite numbers from there???  I shall add this tid bit of info... in doing a large scale research project (sample size 250 X2) that I did notice that when hives collapsed quite often it was the hive right next to it on the pallet that would collapse after the fact. A brief conversation with the owners informs me that this is quite frequently the case outside the boundaries of the above experiment.  All of these hives were 'treated' (it appears more and more frequently with time) which to me generates a number of possibilities beyond the short list of 'feral and unmanaged' hives.  In smaller studies which I have done with my own bees (25 hives) all headed by purchased queens from 'treated stock' I never notice any collapse in near by hives (separated by about 1/4 mile) that I rear from my own or my neighbors untreated stock.  Not certain if that means anything but certainly in biology with any plague those individuals with the least resistance (weakest genetics) are the first to fail.

Gene in Central Texas...
   

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