> Jim's choice of queens struck me because my inclination has always been to
> avoid queens whose hives developed bad varroa infestations.  I wonder what

I'm just a backyard beekeeper.  Ok, two back yards.  Perhaps I have been 
reading to many articles by Dr. Larry Connor and Kirk Webster.  But, I am 
watching my neighbors lose their hives to Varroa and give up.  Around here, 
there are not many beekeepers left.

My bees have Varroa, they will always have them.  I'm not looking to clean 
out the mite.  I want my bees to rise up and evolve with them.  I don't know 
what good my little experiment will do for the beekeeping community.  I'm 
working in a limited space with limited resources.  Maybe I should apply for 
a grant.  In my quest to push evolution along, I need my bees to live, 
suffer with the mite and breed.  I have not just picked good queens to graft 
from.  I look for good queens and try to graft off their great 
grand-daughters,... this year.  I raise a limited number of queens, bank 
them, then use their eggs to raise a new generation of queens.  I repeat 
this process as many times as I can.  All under Varroa pressure.  The queens 
that do not do well are weeded out of the gene pool.

I flatly refuse to give the bees a hard chemical treatment.  Still, if I do 
nothing, I won't have any bees to experiment with. I have several passive 
IPM strategies to hold the mite population.

I am guessing it will take the bees twenty years to cohabitate with Varroa. 
I'm shooting for 2008 for my bees, if they live.  A side benefit to my 
backyard experiment is a rapidly growing apiary.  I keep setting aside to 
make up for the hives I expect to lose, then those hives bounce back.  My 
main problem this year was not Varroa.  My apiary out grew my property and 
my mating nucs kept getting robbed out.  Next year I will be a backyard 
beekeeper in three back yards.

Spring will bring me my results.  Either the some of my hives are going to 
die, or I will have to split them.  So far, I have not lost a hive. 
Perhaps, I have already found my answers.  My hives are strong, my bees seem 
healthy.  I am defiantly doing better than most.  Maybe the answer to Varroa 
is not to breed a better bee, but your actions in the pursuit of one.

Jim Hock
Wethersfield, CT

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