Tracheal mites are kind of an odd pest.
There's a LOT of misinformation about them. They get blamed for problems sometimes, then people realise it was something else all along, but their bad rep remains.
At one time it was thought they caused Isle of Wight disease, which was Something that killed a lot of British hives around 1910-1920. It was originally thought to be nosema, then this mite was discovered and once you knew what to look for it was everywhere, so people assumed it was the cause. Atound 1930 peopke realised IoW' Disease must actually be 2 things, like Foulbrood - a slow burn and fast burn one. We now suspect it was a mix of mites and a paralysis virus, but I'm not convinced tracheal mites were a significant factor.
Brother Adam began promoting his Buckfast bees as tracheal mite resistant. Marketing and rumour works really well. But there's no evidence his bees were resistant to IoW disease other than his word. Ftom the records he left behind, the current beekeepers at Buckfast Abbey found he covered up a big foulbrood outbreak in his colonies... Others who interviewed people who lived through IoW spotted 2 patterns: the susceptible bees were imports, and the beekeepers had shifted from skeps to moveable-framed hives and had not geasoed how easily you could spread dusease that way.
For whatever reason, IoW disease vanished after about 1920 so we don't know what it was. And tracheal mites became hard to find in Britain, indicating the bees had evolved to handle that mite (yet some people claim they can't adapt to varroa). Tracheal mites were kept out of the US for a few decades by an impirt ban, eventually arriving and killing many US colonies. By this time svience was more advanced so we know it was them. Grease patties worked, but when miticides versus varroa began being used they incidentaly killed tracheal mites too. Then aboyt 10-20 years ago teavheal mites bwgan becoming rare in the USA too, presumably the bees developing resistance.
So there's some background. The real cure is buy bees from a different supplier...
