> MAF estimates that their varroa infestation existed for some number
> of years, and clearly was being spread within NZ by queen producers
> before it was first detected.  Australia estimates that the
> infestation of their species or subspecies of SHB existed for some
> number of years before it was detected.  The lesson is that one will
> never find what one does not look for.

In Alberta, varroa was detected in NZ package bees the year before (or
was it two years) prior to the NZ announcement that they found mites in
NZ.  The gov't official who found it here doubted his own findings.  He
thought that the mites he found had somehow been on his drop board
screens.  He repeated the test, but was unable to find more mites on the
second pass, so he had no choice but accept the NZ assurances that they
were vigilant and would know if they had varroa.

As I reported here on May 10th, 2000, a researcher working for us found
evidence of established varroa in hives that had been installed from
*Australian* packages only one month before (April 9th) in a yard which
was made up from packages only, and isolated from our other yards by
several miles.

See http://www.internode.net/Honeybee/Diary/2000/diary050900.htm and
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0005B&L=bee-l&P=R2403

His observation was that varroa had been raised in recently emerged
brood cells.  Since only a month had passed since package installation,
and the bees were installed on foundation -- and the weather was mostly
cool for the first week -- what are the odds that enough mites could
have migrated locally be discovered by eye in an inspection?

An Apistan(r) drop test on several hives turned up several mites which
were shown on my website.

Interestingly enough, my post to BEE-L is the first and the last in its
thread..

allen