It's not uncommon to hear beekeepers lament the fact that we have such a hard time keeping our bees alive while wild colonies (more accurately feral colonies) get along just fine without any human intervention. The "proof" for this is typically a tree they've seen housing the same bee colony for years--or even decades. This leads us to speculate that by constantly meddling with our bees, they don't have a chance to develop a natural resistance to pests and disease, namely varroa mites. There is probably some truth to the improved survival rates of feral colonies, but bee researcher Tom Seeley has mostly attributed this to the high rates of swarming in feral hives compared to domesticated stock. It makes sense that a feral hive will outlive an untreated domesticated hive if it's getting frequent brood breaks from swarming. Brood breaks help control varroa by taking away their ability to reproduce inside capped brood cells. We beekeepers generally take measures to limit swarming, because--while it's good for varroa control--it's not good for honey production and we essentially lose half a colony each time it happens.
I took the above picture at a nearby nature reserve. I've seen bees flying in and out of this tree for the last few years. But today there were no bees. They had either perished or absconded. The odds are they were overwhelmed by varroa mites. (There are other possible explanations--the best one I can think of is they swarmed and the virgin queen failed to successfully mate.) But that's not really the point. The point is that this tree will probably be reoccupied by a swarm of bees in the spring. And people who visit this park will swear that the tree has been continuously occupied by bees for as long as they can remember. After all, the tree had bees two years ago, and last year, and now it's still got bees. Unless you monitor the tree very closely and very often, you'll have the impression that it's the same colony in there, year after year after year. And so is born the myth that wild bees have magically developed resistance to varroa mites. While in fact, wild honey bees are often just swarms from a nearby beekeeper. Their lifestyle (i.e. frequent swarming) may give them an edge, but genetically the bees are just as susceptible to diseases and pests as the bees in our apiaries. The illusion of their pest resistance shouldn't be used as an excuse to neglect the health of bees in our own yards.