"Environment or beekeeping management"

Do we not already know part of the answer at least in the US?  Environment is important.  After all, many have brought queens north that survived just fine treatment free in the south only to find they produced hives in the north that promptly died from mites.  It appears quite easy to be treatment free in Alabama or Texas.  And people that live there can not understand why in the world someone living in Ohio either treats or has dead bees and often says we are stupid for treating as all it does is make weak bees.  After all, they do not treat and they have acceptable survival with their superior genetics.  It does not mater a bit to them if those superior genetics fail miserably when brought north as we apparently are doing something else wrong.

The question is really what is the difference between the south and north?  Is it all the warm weather pollen and nectar dearths?  Probably not or Randy would not have mite problems with the major dearths he experiences.  Is it simply the hives periodically get so hot that the heat kills mites just like the new treatment device that heats hives to kill mites.  By the way, I know a person who is having excellent luck with that hive heater to kill mites in the north.  Is it the lack of cold weather that lasts five months brood free?  I know if my winter brood free period was only one month shorter my winter losses would be considerably lower.  And winter is the only time my hives die.  Or is it something else?

Dick

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