<Hmmm. So why do we still have problems?>

It probably has something to do with the fact that we select for traits
that are not necessarily advantageous to a "wild type" honey bee.  We want
bees that store a ridiculous amount of honey (unless they are way far
North it's more advantageous to store enough for Winter and then swarm), we
want gentle bees (depending on the predator situation this could be
bad), we want low swarming (less reproduction) and so on and so forth.  Add
into that abnormal amounts of moving and influx of new pathogens etc and
it's no wonder.

The fact that we make any progress breeding at all should be more of a
surprise since they have such a lovely mechanism to undo everything we have
done that suits our needs more than theirs.  Everything Randy mentioned is
advantageous to the bee, but mostly bad for us with regards to selective
breeding.  It's like digging a hole in the sand, you can make progress as
long as you keep digging =). Dig too deep or stop digging too long and it
all quickly gets undone.

Jeremy
West Michigan

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