As a follow-up to what I was saying, here is a selection from Mike Allsopp which presents the issues in a rather different light:

> Notwithstanding the characteristics of African honeybee races that pre-adapt them to varroa tolerance, the lack of breeding and artificial selection in African honeybees is certain to be a critical factor in varroa mites not becoming a major problem in South Africa as it has almost throughout the world. Varroa tolerance requires constant selection pressure to maintain the tolerance, the selection pressure provided by free-mating and unmanaged colony survival. 

> In contrast, a very large proportion of the commercial beekeeping industry in the USA depends on the purchase of commercially-produced queens with limited genetic variability, which are often poorly mated and infected with various pests and diseases (Camazine et al 1998). A similar situation exists in commercial beekeeping operations around the world. To compound it, beekeepers are forever introducing bees from across the globe in an effort to deal with local pests and diseases. 

> All in all, the commercial bee population is generally not genetically diverse and not locally adapted. This is in complete contrast to the African honeybee population which is almost totally unselected, and probably as genetically diverse now as it was a thousand years ago. 

> Bailey (1999) and Allsopp (1999) have argued that selective breeding for "quality" by and for beekeepers has decreased the resistance in honeybee populations to a wide range of pathogens. Highly intensive selection has decreased genetic variability and selected against critical “bee tolerance” factors such as swarming and defensiveness (Bailey 1999). A more sensible approach would be to: 

> (a) Manage naturally occurring regional strains of honeybee, rather than importing strains from elsewhere. This is particularly important in Europe and Africa where Apis mellifera is indigenous and less so where it is an exotic species. 

> (b) Practise “primitive” beekeeping as is the case in Africa by allowing natural selection processes to determine which are the most significant characteristics for selection and not the beekeepers or bee scientists, at least to some extent. It is also best to use an un-manipulated wild population, and for this population to be as large as possible. 

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