Hi Barry,
Now it is me that is not being clear.  Researchers and some beekeepers have given us a method to use to select for varroa resistance.  The publications by Erickson is one source as is the report on the ongoing effort by Szabo.  Both describe a method to select bees from any population that are resistant to varroa without losing other valuable traits in the process.  What the Lusby's have done in fact looks very much to me like a variation of this method but results in massive colony losses before the stock is actually resistant enough.  They have give us hope that varroa resistance can be selected in a very short time frame.  Other breeders have also claimed improvements in their varroa resistance efforts in similar time frames.  My point here is that we have been given a method of selection that anyone can use to select for the traits whatever they are that allow bees to deal effectively with varroa.  Not just a "produce" or queen that we all will have to buy but a method that anyone can use.

John Harbo's efforts have given us a line of bees that is resistant to varroa and has been shown (see the documentation on the Baton Rouge Bee lab website) to produce useful resistance in open mated daughter queens.  Look at the reports the number of varroa mites actually decrease in the test colonies.  This line is specifically being released as a way to bring this trait into other bee stocks by crossbreeding.  John has also given us methods for selecting for this trait in any honey bee stock we choose.  Again a method that can be used by anyone who wants to.  In this case we know what the trait is (SMR) so we can base selection on presence of the trait instead of breeding from the colonies with the lowest mite counts.

My opnion is that the cell size thing is a red herring the real work of Dee and Ed was selecting and breeding from survivor colonies until they got the traits for varroa resistance reasonably fixed in their bees.  The evidence from the published research studies is that they would have gotten the same results without the smaller cell size since others have.

Now the related issue of feral honey bee population.  I did suspect that there would be comments on that issue too.  First feral honey bee populations have not been studied very much either before nor after varroa so we really don't have good data to go on.  Having said that there were published studies from north America in either AJB or BeeCulture before mites that there were at least 3 to 4 times as many feral colonies as there were managed colonies in the US.  Don't have the reference here.  Now what has happened since mites?  First after a lag while the mites spread many colonies died.  But many reports ( not usually actual research ) indicate a rebound in feral colonies.  The reports to this list of the increase in swarms in Santa Barbara area, the reports from others of seeing honey bees again in areas without any kept bees, and in Europe the articles from Italy in AJB a few years back about the collection of swarms by a researcher that documented a steep decline of feral colonies but then a rebound of feral colonies seen in the form of increased honey bee swarms.   There are also the reports of individuals that do honey bee removals from buildings that indicate that they continue to get enough feral colonies to support the removal business.  All these together indicate that there in fact many feral colonies of honey bees in the wild and these colonies appear to be recovering from varroa mites.  Again this gives us hope that selection for varroa resistance can be successful sooner rather than later.

Now we are all working on this together and will continue to do so.  Many are trying the cell size thing which is fine and others are trying other methods which is also fine.  We share the goal of selecting honey bees that are resistant to varroa mites and other diseases and pests and will produce useful crops of honey and effectively pollinate our crops.  Right now many of us small beekeepers can use IPM methods and keep colonies alive but with resistant stock added to the mix we stand ready to move beyond managing varroa back to managing honey bees.

FWIW

blane


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Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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