I ran two Saskatrqz colonies this year and one of my clients (I run a city-wide apiary network) was two more.

We also capture around 50 'wild' swarms around town or year - some of these are from backyard hives but many are from well known, well established wild colonies living in trees or houses.

In all cases the wild swarms outperformed Saskatrqz in terms of growth during the summer. But this is almost always the case that swarms outperform packages. We will do mite counts headed into fall and then will have a little bit of information.

Colony loss from mites is over 50% yearly in town so it's #1 cause of death and a big concern for backyard keepers (in all the USA #1 cause of death is winter for backyard keepers, but here we don't have much winter). Varroa is #1 cause of death in industry as well. This is largely a human-made problem at this point.

A local expert (UC Davis) told me that if industry quit treating for mites, 95% of hives would die which would be catastrophic for food. However the resulting stock would bounce back with strong Varroa resistance. I understand that in South Africa they undertook a practical application of the let nature run her course strategy and it worked.

However in the USA at the heart of the big commercial AG industry, it's all treatment, all the time. That mentality bleeds into the backyard culture - the extension program which trains backyard beekeepers statewide teaches that if you don't treat for Varroa then you are a nuisance - the model says that when a hive dies from Varroa it's infected bees don't so die, they abandon colony and move into nearby colonies. I attended a conference once where they compared an untreated have to an atom bomb - the speaker had a huge screen behind him and there was an atom bomb video on loop. After his presentation they were giving away mite treatment strips from a major brand - this was an academic speaker, not an industry rep.

The trouble with treating heavily for mites follow similar models which are well documented and fail: the rather pest gets resistance, the host gets weaker. Here in an small city in AG land where we are surrounded by commercial keepers, we have zero chance of developing local mite resistance. Our good survivor queens mate with drones from treated colonies where the is no selective pressure on bees to grow tolerance and higenic behavior. Likewise those commercial drones are a death sentence for wild bees.

Even so, we continue to have colonies that persist year after year, generation after generation in town, and although most colonies for each year we end up with as many swarms as lost colonies, so break even. Many of my colonies across town count fewer mites than they did a few years ago. I think that in spite of industry, the small pocket of organic keeping going on here in town is having an event. I think as well industry is buying hiegenic queens.

That's all speculation, although more informed than average. Mite resistant queens have been on the market for a decade - Russians, Carniolans, even a breed of blond Italian that was billed as varroa resistant was being sold in this neck of the woods. I tried all of them and lost them all to mites eventually. Before these breeds because available a local professor and breeder had developed an all black bee with reported excellent resistance. Saskatraz are only the lastest and the greatest. Maybe they will be the magic bullet.

What's important is that the hiegenic genes remain in the population. To that end marketing like this when it's backed up by evidence is a positive thing. However what remains the most effective response to varroa is to do little and let nature run her course: let it bee.