Waldemar asked:

> How are A.m.m. when it comes to varroa?

Reputed to have some resistance, so selection work is ongoing.  The majority 
of my bees are dark and more native than not - but only perhaps 10% are pure 
A.m.m., so I cannot make too many claims.  What I can say is that varroa 
arrived here in 1997 and since then I have only used thymol to treat for 
varroa, my theory being that bees have to be exposed to varroa in order to 
develop resistance (backed up by Sue Cobey when she spoke at the BIBBA AGM 
this spring.  Thymol keeps levels below the damage threshold, but leaves the 
bees exposed to some mites.  Most of the yellow bees that I had have since 
died, showing high susceptibility to DWV.
At first I treated March and August, but have cut out the March treatments 
for the past couple of years as there are so few mites.  Last winter I had 
5% losses - none of those were pure A.m.m.  So far this year I have only 
seen about 6 bees with deformed wings.  Last year I started with 120 
colonies, produced 5.5 tonnes of honey and finished with 163 colonies (no 
'foreign' swarms collected).
My breeding programme this year aims to eliminate as many Italian genes as I 
can from my stocks.

> What I also would like to know: is anyone keeping A.m.m. in the US??

Pass!

Best wishes

Peter Edwards
[log in to unmask]
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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