Hi all, glad to see some faces re-appear (Garth).

Anyone whom has followed my posts in the past knows I've been spending
summers pulling out feral hives from anywhere & everywhere.  My success
is evidenced by some 50-55 hives borne from the walls, ceilings and
rooftops all over southern Colorado.  For those whom think the feral
hive population has all but disappeared, let me assure them their drone
population IS confounded by feral drones (reference Bill Truesdell post
regarding expectation of nearly sterile environment for bee breeding
"More On Urban Legends" - Nov'99).  If you don't believe me, place your
name on every local fire/police/pesticide outfit as bee removal service
this coming spring.

If we're to believe ALL feral hives are repopulated by commercially
managed hives,
the number of calls you get in proportion to the number and location of
commercial/hobbyist beehives simply doesn't add up.  Two(3?) years ago,
most of the hives I pulled were mostly on the verge of breakdown.  Last
summer, more often than not, the feral hives outpaced normal buildup (we
had a good spring).  One hive gave up 24 pounds of bees (weighed) on a 2
day removal.  The next day, the remainder of the hive was removed
(1/2?).  Another nearby (next street over) was nearly as productive and
an obvious one-year-old swarm from the parent.  Why are these hives so
healthy on their own (not the minority)?  What I've seen from the hives
of  'bee-havers' is that mites completely demoralize the hive bringing
on all kinds of disease in their wake.  This is consistent to most of
the feral hives removed two(3?) years ago.  Only one of  30(40?) removed
last year was clearly demoralized by mites.

My question is, what should I be doing in the best interests of our bee
gene pool with these relocated feral hives?

If I were to hold back mite treatment, I could easily pick resistant
hives - but would incur 80-100% losses.  Without requeening, these hives
are vastly inferior in temperament and honey production (for the most
part, though a few outstanding hives!) in comparison to the other 50
commercially selected queened hives in my apiary.   Other choices are
selective requeening based on production/temperment criteria for normal
commercial beekeeping - without regard to 'saving bee strains'.  One
last option is queen rearing (feral or commercially selected eggs?) and
allow the drone population to 'confound' the mating which is a total
'hit or miss' strategy.  What to do?  Other ideas for managment?

The alternative is to stand back and watch feral populations die off
from intentional pesticide/natural selection.  If we all take a back
seat to surviving feral strains by choosing to requeen with ONLY
commercially available queens, then perhaps we condemn ourselves to
great short-term management and a bleak long-term 'inbred' gene pool.


Matthew Westall

       //        Earthling Bees
 >8(())))-  "Take me to your feeder"
       \\        Castle Rock, CO,  USA