Eric Smith quried about "Home test for varroa mites?"
 
> My hives died last winter. I think it was the varroa mite even though
> I had put in the Apstan (sp) strips last fall. Is there any way to
> tell other than shipping the (dead) bees off to a lab?
>
> Do you know of any good mail order bee houses that will deliver to
> the Washington DC area and is there a way I stimulate a new hive
> enough that I could get a small honey crop this year?
 
Even though he requested a direct reply, I thought my comments might
benefit other subscribers on the list, so here it is:
 
It's always a bummer to loose your stock.  Making an educated guess can
lead to trouble.  I lost a hive to what I thought was varroa, and
restocked the equipment.  In upstate NY, a typical hive is two brood
chambers, so I split the single hive in two and started two packages in
the spring.  What I thought was varroa turned out to be foulbrood and I
had to burn the equipment and packaged bees two months later.  It was a
painful and expensive lesson.  Perhaps there is a local beekeeping
association in your area from which you could solicit an experienced
opinion.  Even then, it is still an opinion which could lead to trouble.
Short of tests, there is no way to be absolutely sure of the cause of
your bees' demise.  There is the ether roll test when your bees are alive,
but with dead bees I don't know of any home tests.
 
For replacement stock I recommend ... (Plug for specific company
deleted - E-Mail to me directly if you want it) ...
                                 ... Place your order early and they will
be able to ship your bees when you want them (mid-April in upstate NY).
I'm not sure of the date for your area, but a good rule of thumb is to
request shipment to coincide with the maple tree bloom.  I had the
pleasure to work a hive of Buckfast bees last fall and found them to be
the most gentle bees I have ever worked.  They produced a nice crop of
honey in their first season and are also reputed to be resistant to
varroa mites.
 
As far as getting a good crop of honey this year, you'd have even better
results starting a nuc as opposed to package bees, but nucs are harder
to obtain.  Again, a local beekeeping association is your best source
for advice in this area, and for improving your skills as a beekeeper in
general.  I had been keeping bees for over fifteen years before I joined
the Southern Adorandack Beekeepers' Association, and I learned more tips
from the old timers in a single season than I had in the previous 15
years of books, trial and error.  A tip about continued feeding lead to
the best crop from a new hive I ever got!  My practice was to give the
bees a gallon of sugar syrup in a division board feeder, and when the
syrup was gone I removed the feeder and the bees were on their own.
SABA members advised me to keep feeding the bees into mid-June, and I
ended up with two supers of honey from a new hive!  Before that, I never
attempted to harvest from a new hive until the second season.  So if
there is a local beekeepers association in your area, join it and attend
the meetings.  A good place to determine if there is a local association
is your local agricultural cooperative extension (Check the blue pages
in your area telephone directory).
 
I hope this letter is of assistance to you, and good luck in restocking
your apiary!