a couple of Charles Linder snips followed >by my comments or questions..

May be some other thoughts, packages come from many sources,  so it is possible yours came from a yard that’s been using Apivar,  and do have some restiance,  but you could also have some bad Apivar?

>first a thought.... all bees are not created equal when it comes to resistance to varroa. even within the same batch of packages or queens.....you should expect substantial variation. Charles do you know of cases where Apivar has failed and is known and proven? I have had a case where this maybe the case here and want to generate as much information on the failure as possible. 

It appears to me the hive is also suffering from a severe lack of nutrition.  As it slowly dwindled the problem gets to be a self sustaining issue.  No food,  sick brood/ increased mite ratio.  So the question is of course which came first?

The EFB concern is usually cleared up with good food,  and PMS often look like EFB,  but just my 2 cents worth.

>Bingo.... All problems related to keeping bees alive is not necessarily even related to varroa.  And yes some problems look similar with only minor differences.  I have had to caution students here that yes varroa is a problem but keep your mind open when they see some problem. Just because they are a hammer everything is not a nail.

Gene in Central Texas

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