Arnot Forest is a 1651-ha research preserve in near Ithaca New York State. Since 1978 Prof Thomas D Seeley and his colleagues have been studying the wild honey bees in the forest. Initially 9 colonies were located, and then 24 years later a 2002 census found 8 colonies that had surprisingly survived varroa mite infestations without human interventions.
The work of Seeley and his colleagues has regularly shown that the choices free living bees make are often not the choices beekeepers would make for them, and this has raised the question of whether beekeeping is meeting the biological needs of the honey bee.