Current efforts at controlling movement are not effective. Florida, as of May 27, had twenty-nine infested counties involving some 11,000 colonies. Too few law enforcement officers and bee inspectors are employed to adequately cover the entire state. Bee inspectors' energies are so drained by Varroa inspections they are unable to go about the traditional business of controlling American foulbrood, which is on the rise. Hobbyist beekeepers are receiving less emphasis in Varroa and other diseases' control because most resources are being consumed by demands from commercial operators to move bees.
Movement is the basis for most commercial beekeeping in Florida.
If colonies can't be moved, then many beekeepers are out of business, mites or no mites. Fluvalinate treatments do not control one hundred percent of mites in a colony and some, therefore, survive. Mites end up being moved in spite of everything. Beyond managed colonies, Varroa has also been found on a carpenter bee, bumble bee and beetle in Florida. History of the synthetic pyrethroids, of which fluvalinate is one, suggests that resistance by mites can build up rapidly in an environment where these chemicals are widely used.