a randy oliver snip... 
Any commercial operator, if he so chose, could easily learn get set up for
processing mite counts.  Some very large operators already are doing so.
This is the ONLY expertise needed.  They could then hand any queens
appearing to carry genes for resistance over to willing breeders.

I'm attempting to rally against the attitude of defeatism that I'm hearing
from this group.  Had that attitude been the norm of animal breeders in the
past, we would now have no domestic dogs, cats, cattle, sheep, goats,
chickens, etc.

my comments...
first off no defeatism here either! I guess the first question above is what do you qualify as commercial?  Of course if you do not have the skill set or expertise for monitoring or if you simply don't have the man power to allot to this task you could pay to have this service done.  As far as the information I have some of the larger guys are doing just that.  Across the spectrum (hobby to whatever) I tell people they need to monitor.... and then at least when their hives does dies they kind of know why.  And for many learners the only way for them to recognize varroa collapse or any of the various virus associated with varroa is to witness it first hand.  Some education is more expensive than others.

And thank you Peter and Paul for you clear explanation of what you are doing at your operation.

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