Hi Waldemar & All,

> I am thinking a lot of bee genetics unable to cope with varroa will go away.
>

Sounds logical.

> It would seem breeding from the survivors will only speed up isolating and
propagating resistant material.
>

Also sounds logical and practical in theory. The problem is a lot of beekeepers
do not rear and mate their own queens and stock, and promising genetics will be
lost when they import queens to requeen their hives. This will decrease genetic
diversity. To remedy losing diversity beekeepers can breed from their survivors
and trade stock periodically with beekeepers who keep similar strains so to keep
down complex hybridization, improve diversity within a strain, and stabilize
genetics instead of mixing it up to much.

> A light at the end of the tunnel?
>

It helps to be an optimist if your a beekeeper. We just need to learn to keep
bees more like our grandfathers did instead of relying on others to do the
fundamentals, like breeding bees.

JMO (Just MY Opinion),

 . ..   Keith Malone, Chugiak, Alaska USA, http://www.cer.org/,
c(((([ , Apiarian, http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney/,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norlandbeekeepers/ ,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ApiarianBreedersGuild/

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