Hello Mike & All,
Mike I am very interested in your project as I have said privately.
My questions are only intended to help you and the lab solve the
*mysterious* part they write about.

The labs words were:
Amazing housekeepers ,yet *mysterious*

mysterious:
1.Implying or characterized by mystery.
2. Unexplained; puzzling
-Syn. A *mysterious* occurrence contains something *unknown*.

>As a result of my observations I would have to say
that three of the five colonies were very vigorous and
I observed no abnormal brood patterns.

Ok we have got three hives with normal brood viability. In my opinion there
are two possible reasons for this if the bees are SMR from the lab.

1. the queen was an outcross and not inbred.

2. The bees you have got are not opening cells and removing pupa as the web
site says.

Have you got and can you share the fall varroa load? Will tell me quite a
bit about your SMR bees.

Either 1 or 2 above would leave a shotgun pattern.

>The one dead out just refused to respond to treatments to build up
the strength and I suspect a poorly mated queen.

What was the brood pattern like?

Are saying poorly mated because of poor brood viability (shotgun pattern).

>In conclusion, I would say that when the queens are
laying well, they produced a very strong colony that
did well in honey production for the first year.

Wow! does not sound like the "pure" SMR Isis and I have dealt with. My
question is two fold:

1. does the hive/hives still carry the varroa tolerance Isis and I saw with
the "pure" SMR line?

2. Why are you not seeing the work of the *quote*  detector & consumer
hygienic bees which would have to be the shotgun brood pattern ? If the bees
are pulling and consuming the cell would be empty or have eggs or young
larva if the queen was prolific.


>Looking at the bees on the comb though, I saw no
evidence of varroa on any of the bees.

Unless the hive is very infested looking at the bees alone is a poor method
of guessing varroa load. Use a capping scratchier and pull  brood or do a
drop or roll test.

You asked for my analysis and now you are getting the analysis along with
BEE-L. If the lab or you object to our conversation we can take up off
BEE-L.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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