This message is relayed from Luis Rommel Beutelspacher.
-------------------

Greetings from Southern Mexico !!!

I believe one thing has not been cleared concerning varroa resistant =
honey bees:

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF VARROA RESISTANT HONEY BEES?
How much tolerance is considered "resistant"?

There are around 500,000 colonies in the area of Mexico where I live
and =
I believe that a great portion of this hives are never treated for =
varroa, since they are kept by rural beekeepers with very rustic =
tecnics.  I am fairly new into beekeeping (two years) and I have not =
treated any of my hives (included the first 10 that I purchased two =
years ago). In how long is varroa supposed to kill a hive?  After how
=
long of having varroa in a hive is this considered "resistant"?

The hives seem to be working normally and the original 10 hives have
now =
3 supers on and will yield a very good honey crop in a few weeks.  I =
have seen varroa in many of my hives but they don't seem to diminish
the =
population in a noticeable way.

I had a visit from Mr. Ken Hoare from England last week (Thanks to =
Bee-L).  He used to work as an bee inspector for many years in UK.
He =
looked at those original 10 hives and graded them as "In excellent =
shape".  He didn't even think of them to be aggresive !!!

One last comment.  I have recently started my queen rearing
operation, =
and bought a few queens from some suppliers from northern Mexico to
use =
as breeding queens.  These are not as africanized as the ones we
usually =
work with.  I have noticed in my breeding apiary a little more varroa
=
than on the other apiaries.  I believe that the africanized strain
that =
we usually have here in Yucatan might be some what "resistant" to =
varroa.

Wish you all happy honeying !

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
           Luis Rommel Beutelspacher
   (\      Maya Honey S.A. de C.V.
 -{|||8-   Ticul, Yucat=E1n, M=E9xico.
   (/      Tel/Fax (997) 20715
           [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com