>Joe, I am very curious about how the bees in your area "handle" the mite! Do mite levels remain low through the season? Or do the bees simply survive despite high mite levels?> During visual inspection, I may see an occasional mite on a bee. Few years back Dennis Van,,, commented during my queen permit inspection that he could not understand why the colonies had low mite counts,,,, He had to spend several minutes before spotting a mite,,,, He said that he wanted me to count mite drop,, but had his budget for mite boards tied up with other beekeepers. I suppose he suspected I may have treated,, which I never have in 10 years. >And do you have any actual numbers as to numbers of mites per 100 bees, so that we can calibrate our discussion?> Tell me how you want me to do a count, and I will conduct counts to your specs. >The reason for my interest is that I'm curious as to the various adaptive mechanisms by which bees control varroa.> I have a feeling its more resistance in the population keeping mite levels low rather than anything special at the colony level. I feel I do not experience mite pressure from the local ferals as once was the case in the past. Joe *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm