In a message dated 31/08/2010 17:16:19 GMT Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: Randy where will those resistant bacteria live? Circulating within the bees guts or they may sit in the hive as an infective load? Having been excreted by the larvae, they may be plastered against the cell wall behind the cocoon or possibly be picked up by the cell cleaners with their tongues before they begin to feed the babies. Chance mutations, such as might confer resistance, may occur at random. They will be rare, but we are dealing with huge numbers. Generally such departures from the norm come at a cost to the organism and rarely succeed, being out competed by the conformists but in the special circumstances of the conformists being destroyed by, in this case, antibiotics, those with the resistance mutation will have a chance to succeed, multiply and pass on their strange genes until they, in turn, become the norm. So the use of antibiotics doesn't create resistance but encourages resistance to multiply. Chris *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm