Thanks for the kind comments.  Rumors about 1) my contributions and 2)  
my retirement are somewhat exaggerated.  Regarding the first, more  
than anything, I have been extremely fortunate in somehow being  
involved in a number of burning topics through three decades (closer  
to four if you count when I was given my first colony for a birthday  
by my parents).  These opportunities have allowed interaction/ 
cooperation with a good number of smart and decent people (in most  
cases) in many different settings.  With respect to the second point,  
even though I finished 30 years with ARS recently, some form of  
involvement with topics, people and dialogue surrounding the still  
fascinating topic of honey bees and beekeeping remains a good option  
for the future.

Back to the topic at hand.  Very bluntly, it is a question of balance  
between the economic benefit of adoption and the costs of the new  
"technology".   In a number of cases there have been obvious subsidies  
to defray the costs: publicly funded selection and maintenance  
programs (in larger countries dominated by commercial beekeeping) or  
passion inspired volunteer programs (countries with mostly  
hobbyists).  Clearly many breeding programs have had minimal impact  
and adoption.  Hygienic bees for control of AFB and chalkbrood would  
not be a "game changer" (in the current bureaucratic parlance) for  
Australia.  At the other end of the spectrum, Australia is now  
considering preemptively importing, selecting and testing some form of  
varroa resistant material.  Historically, the reported replacements of  
native or invasive "subspecies" with presumably better bees in a  
number of situations is perhaps a clear example of how when there is a  
need, the will and a procedure, change does happen.  And yet, even in  
the same continent (compare Germany with Spain right now), or even the  
same country (compare the southern irrigated areas of Israel with the  
greener northern areas close to the Lebanese border, at least in the  
1980s) change has not been uniform.

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