Musashi wrote:
>
> Steve Davis mentions that bees kept in gums with no frames and had never been
> treated for mites were still alive, then he transferred them to regular hives
> and treated them, wondering if they might have resistance.
>
> Two thoughts come to my mind as I read his message.  One is that yes, it is
> possible that they could have some resistance.  The other is that since they
> were not raised on foundation or frames and just in the natural comb, they
> would most likely have had a lot more drones raised than an ordinary hive.
> In that case, since mites reproduce predominantly on drone brood when it is
> available, then the drones would have been more affected by the mites than
> the workers and the overall hive would have been healthier.
 
 
This is an angle I don't fully understand. It runs contrary to a notion
of mite control in which the *absence* of drones leads to a reduced mite
population. Absence of drones means absence of mite incubators - or at
least the mite's preferred incubator. The drone cell size and the drone
development time frame is more conducive to mite development. Once the
mites have developed into adults they don't have a preference of adult
bee types they infect - do they?. This thinking has even lead to mite
control efforts involving foundation with smaller cell impressions,
encouraging the building of smaller cells, discouraging the laying of
drone eggs - I think the jury is still out on that experiment. Do I know
any of this from experience? No. But there has been extensive writing on
the subject and now I find myself following a thread that runs contrary
to that info. From what I've read, a lot of people keep bees
successfully without treating but I wouldn't take that to be conclusive
one way or another - just lucky. A lot of people seem to be losing their
bees and they do treat - just unlucky. As for me I'm sticking with the
theory that the best drone population is no drone population - except
for that one necessary and short lived function. And I'm talking bees
only:)
 
AL