Well I second your emotion Andy...about the misplaced "Bogeyman" but... I live in Sonoma county and I have watched with interest the wild bee populations around my ranch now for about seven years or more. They have always seemed to be on a slight increase...even with a terrible winter or two. (One that killed off a lot of eucalyptus) The only problem is that about 3 years ago I noticed the bee trees my daughter and I used to visit were increasingly empty. I didn't put much stock in the mites as my grandfather used to say healthy bees will survive just about anything. He put oil of peppermint in the water and checked for weak hives and replacing when necessarry (no matter what) made it a moot point what caused the problem. AFB was dealt with and life went on. But what I have been seeing is really disturbing; the feral bee population is DOWN. Over about a 300 acre parcel I used to roam (part of it on BLM) I can find no colonies. Seven years ago I counted five. This morning I watched a measly five to ten bees work an acacia that by now would be crawling with bees and that with ten kept hives a quarter of a mile away. The russian river area by Alexander Valley is practcally devoid of bees. So, regardless of what is going on...SOMETHING is happening. I won't say it is Mites and I won't say it's not. Got any other clues? jrb