QUOTE:
The question is not varroa. Question is on the whole back to nature. No
thanks. IT MEANS REGRESSION OF BEEKEEPER. It would be honest to tell new
hobby beekeepers that wax strips and small cells and swarming crossbreeded
bee stocks is the ART OF REGRESSED BEEKEEPING.

ME:
A very good start. There is a strong current throughout the 20th and now the
21st century that supposes that IF we went back to the OLD WAYS, all our
problems would miraculously evaporate. Hello! There is no going back, only
going forawrd. The problems we have now, they didn't have!

Be that as it may, there is a lot to be learnt from techniques invented a
hundred or more years ago. Langstroth was the first to describe the
"nucleus" system of beekeeping. In fact, his advances on queen selection and
nucleus formation are worth at least as much as his perfection of the
moveable frame hive.

This nucleus system was taken up and modified by queen breeders the world
over. But it was taken to new level of usefulness by Brother Adam, where he
raised queens during the summer and over-wintered them in order to have
young TESTED queens in the spring, instead of requeening with newly mated
queens which may or may not be any good.

THEN, Kirk Webster, utilizing ideas from his teacher Charles Mraz and
Brother Adam too, moved the nucleus system to a further new level where he
builds within his apiaries healthy colonies that build up successfully
without chemical treatments. Of course, he is buying and further selectin
mite resistant stock.

This is just the roughest sketch of what I think the KEY is to the
beekeeping of the future, where we will not have to depend on chemicals to
keep the hives alive. I am not anti-chemicals per se, but I am cognizant of
the disastrous results of chemical dependency whether it be with our
livestock or our own selves.

Herve Abeille

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