Hello all, I am new here and am following with great interest the
discussion on winter losses.  I live in upstate NY and have kept bees
for 8 years.  I have primarily used Buckfast and Italian.  I have also
collected some feral swarms which I did not requeen because I was
interested in their performance.  I also figured that they must have
some level of tolerance/resistance to TM to have survived.
   I have never lost a Buckfast colony to TM whereas my Italian colonies

have never failed to succumb to the mite.  My fellow beekeepers who all

kept Italians also experienced 80-90% losses.  They have now switched to

trying buckfast at my urging and have been very pleased.  The only
Italians that I have had good results with against TM are the Survivor
Italians form York and the All americans from Weaver.  However they have

never performed up to the standards of the Buckfast.  The one point on
which I have been sorely dissapointed with the Buckfast is their Spring

buildup.  Based on all of this experience (which is really not much),
and all of the literary research that I have done concerning
resisitance/tolerance to mites, I am a firm believer that the answer to

TM is not medication but Resitant Stock.  I also believe that while it
is necesarry to treat for Vj now, the answer to the Varroa problem will

also be resistant stock.
   In reply to George's comment "resistant queen Ha ha"  I find it
difficult to believe that someone with so much beekeeping experience
could put aside the importance and sheer reality that this sort of
things exist.  Even before large scale modern commercial beekeeping
operations have cropped up, honeybees have lived with pest as have all
living organisms.  The only way that they have survived to this day is
by being naturally selected for by the harsh laws of nature.  In many
ways I believe that modern beekeeping with its severe emphasis on
production and capital has done Apis a bad turn.  We have bred the
honeybee for specific traits and left them vulnerable to diseases.  This

is a phenomenon that is commonly seen with agriculture and livestock
breeding.
   Sincerely, Yuuki

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