Hello All,

> steps would have to be taken to eradicate the mongrelized local stock.

Actually most (if not all) of all the stock in the U.S. could be called
mongrelized. Or you could use the rule of thumb used by some ( not all)
queen producers. If yellow in color the queen goes in the Italian queen
cage.
If dark she goes in the Carniolan cage.

To break down breeding programs you have got the queen producers which toil
over numbered queens and instrumental insemination. Smaller selection group
of usually around a 100 hives.

and then you have got the method I prefer:

You select the breeder queens every year  from several thousand of your best
production hives for the traits you desire. The queens I buy mostly are from
the three queen producers I know of which use the method and have always
been my best source of queens.

>If somebody wants more vigorous stock, they can simply let the weak ones
perish. That's what a lot of large scale operators do anyway.

Large scale operators for the most part do not raise queens and requeen on a
one or two year cycle. If they are not happy with the queens they are
getting they use another queen producer the next year.

 I would not consider myself large scale  but still I never get all my
queens from the same source. Three sources gives you a chance to compare
plus keeps you from getting a total queen failure. Early queens from
California last year (due to cold weather and poor mating) produced poor
queens. Not the queen producers fault and will not stop most of us from
using those queens this year but does make most of us glad all our queens
were not from one area.

> In the past beekeepers selected for productivity or temperament. Now vigor
and disease resistance should be foremost.

 Not with many of us IF treatments for disease are working. Vigor in my
opinion is related to poor control of mites, disease and contaminated comb.
Healthy bees without poor brood viability have got plenty of vigor.

Prolific bees will be productive in my opinion. Again the one percenter veiw
point. Varroa is still the big issue today. Prolific and bees which do not
need varroa treatment have not quite came together yet ( at least to a point
the whole 100 queens are prolific).

To the one percenter when cost of treating is higher than the the loss of
productivity then the varroa tolerant and disease resistant bee will need a
close look. Sure we always try a few to have a look see.

When friends like Randy Oliver say the new VHS queens are prolific & working
in a commercial operation then I am willing to take  a look but certainly
not jump in head first. Might try a precentage this spring.

At a recent convention several of the largest queen producers said the same
thing. When we see a better bee than ours we will switch or use in our
program. So far we like the bees we use and sell.  I use those guy queens
and for one want those queens bees back next year.

>A further disincentive to using wild hives is that these are a source of
African genes.

The USDA-ARS is not going to say what I am about to say (or at least not in
public) so I will.

AHB genetics reach far and wide in the U.S..

One country has banned imports of queens from the U.S. saying even our DNA
testing for AHB is suspect.

bob


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