I just realized that in the past 3 years, I had not lost a colony to varroa or winter, and stress related varroa symptoms have been non existent. I knew I was on the road to recovery when I identified winter starvations occurring in the years prior, which IMO varroa had not played any contributing role. I remember when I joined my first list in 2001, -the Irish beekeepers list. I gave a prediction that ferals in my area would recover in 20 years from the date of the 95-96 crashes that occurred here in the North East. Well, -I was wrong, it took 15 years. Ferals are now abundant in my area, and most of my colony extractions are within 8 miles of home. I'm planning on increasing in colonies next season. With colonies remaining healthy, and varroa a non-issue, the management time needed is greatly reduced, and with that, -the ability to maintain more colonies is finally a possibility. I'm seriously considering obtaining a few Italian queens from a commercial source. My intent is to interject some genteelness into the gene pool, and prolific egg laying abilities. My opinion is that the ferals are so dominate in my area, that an introduction of commercial queens would have minimal to no impact on the feral population. And it would be good to have some comparison. Any thoughts? Best Wishes, Joe Waggle *********************************************** 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