commercial Bkeepers and varroa

[kiwiBee]

Quite often I read on here about varroa resistant bees and how you havn't treated in years etc, I'm wondering if that applies to commercial beekeepers and if it does I'm wondering how you could sustain the losses that you would have when letting the varroa have a free reign in the hives?
We dont have resistant mites yet and can still use Bayvarol with really good effect, what do you use now?
Thanks
Kiwi

[honeyshack]

I am not a big commercial producer. But, I use formic up to 2x a year (spring and fall) regularly. However, my first line of defense is nutrition and monitoring the hives regularly. Even as a commercial producer it is easy to monitor the hives. It is recommended by our university to inspect at least 15% in each yard, of varying strengths several times a year.
I have to much invested, as does my banker to take the risk of not treating and loosing alot of hives in a year or two.
If i owned everything outright i might consider trying it on a yard or two to see where it got me, making my decision from there.

[B Reeves]

Buy Queens from breeders who dont treat, then only breed or split from survivors its a good way to start small
Bob

[KQ6AR]

Hi Kiwi,
You would probably have to import queens from a country thats had Varroa for 20+ years. That would be the fastest way, with lower losses. Someone in you're area is hopefully already importing good breeder resistant queens.

[BEES4U]

You might want to do some reading about your product.

http://www.emea.europa.eu/pdfs/vet/mrls/046998en.pdf
Please read section #13 about bees and residues in wax
_____________________________________________
Some more background on this group of chemicals:
pyrethroid acaricides pyrethroid ester acaricides
acrinathrin
bifenthrin
cyhalothrin
cypermethrin
alpha-cypermethrin
fenpropathrin
fenvalerate
flucythrinate
flumethrin
fluvalinate
tau-fluvalinate
permethrin pyrethroid ether acaricides
halfenprox

Ernie

[Michael Bush]

I'm not big enough to call myself commercial, but at the peak of the season I have 100 hives and 100 mating nucs. Wintering, right now, I have 100 hives. I do not treat at all and have not since 2003. Here are my results:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm

I actually did not treat at all for 30 of the last 35 years and only did out of desperation until I found natural cell size:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm