Garth wrote:
> No this raises a question in my mind. If we consider the North
> American bee population to be really inbred, with the majority of the
> bees coming from a few production.....
 
> So the result is that, through naturral selection for TM resistance
> one gets a hell of a bottleneck in the amount of variability for
> other traits in the natural environment.
 
        I doubt this that big a problem. The North American gene pool is very
large and diverse. The "few production areas" are really quite large and
contain many lines. T-mite resistance can be found in practically any
line so the "survivors" are not necessarily all from the same line. The
loss of other beneficial traits when selecting for t mite can be easily
avoided by preselecting canidates for your favorite other chacteristics.
For example, when we selected canidates for quick test we chose colonies
that were gentle, very productive, and wintered very well. These
characteristics were known to be favorable for 2 or 3 years prior to
quick test. This gives us a better chance of finding a good breeder and
results in less wasted time and expense. Notice that the 2 or 3 years of
monitoring are not adequate to pick breeders. This really surprised me
in the 1st quick test. I thought all my canidates would do well but only
1 of 4 did. I learned that my "seat of the pants" observations were
hardly adaquate for picking breeders when t mite resistance is the goal.