I just found out that this publication is available online. In it, they state:

> Breeding for more disease resistant bees provides an effective way to reduce the chemical treatment of diseases and of reduced needs for pest control. 

This is what 99% of the beekeepers I know want. We do NOT favor an approach that relies more and more on chemicals, but neither do we want to watch our bees die over and over and over. Why mischaracterize folks as pro-chemical simply because they refuse to become ideologues?

Following Fries and Lindstrom

> It has been suggested that the cell size influences mite reproduction. However, if there is such an effect, it is small and of little practical value.

Their conclusion is one that I whole heartedly accept:

> Decades of selection based on one or several characteristics as mentioned have not produced mite tolerant bees that survive without mite control. However, such mite tolerant colonies exist nevertheless. The common characteristic for such populations of bees is, also in Europe, that they have been exposed to natural selection, rather than directed selection efforts in apiculture. Thus, we know that co-existence between mites and bees can be achieved.

> A practical solution to this dilemma is firstly to breed for hygienic bees, which has some positive effects, and then allow mite numbers to grow enough for comparative differences between different breeding lines to be exposed. In short, this means mite control but not enough to cover existing differences between potential breeder queens in mite population growth. Ultimately, such an approach is likely to cause some damage and possibly even some loss of colonies. But the alternative is probably a never-ending dependence on mite control for colony survival.

BREEDING DISEASE RESISTANT HONEYBEES
Ingemar Fries & Anders Lindström
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Box 7044
SE-75007 Uppsala, Sweden

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