Hello Lloyd and All
,
I agree with everything Lloyd has posted but would remind hobby beekeepers
of the importance of making a strict schedule of removing the drone brood
and sticking to it.  Get busy with summer activities and those same frames
of all drone brood become sources  of tremendious amounts of varroa.

I would be interested to see how well a few Bee--L people do this year using
Lloyds method. I would however do testing to determine the varroa load
before starting and again in the fall.

Any method of reducing varroa mite load is worthwhile BUT one must consider
the time involved and the expense of the project unless beekeeping is a
hobby. Typically hobbies cost us money to say nothing of the time spent on
our hobbies.

I think all ways of controlling varroa are worthwhile but I stand firmly
behind our USDA researchers in their search for the bee which can *live with
varroa*.
Those same researchers told me ten years ago the project would take around
20 years. Instead they are close (in my opinion) in less than half the time.
The future of the feral colonies in the U.S. is dependent on their research
(which is threatened by loss of the Baton Rouge bee lab)..
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Ps. I know many people have posted about all the feral colonies they are
seeing. Many of those come from the huge amount of swarming from the huge
numbers of colonies kept in the U.S..
Research has shown us that most colonies die after two years from varroa if
not treated. There are exceptions as we all know but the exceptions are rare
and  not the rule.