>> ...Australian imports have never had any Tracheal exposure and having 
>> them installed in almonds near the major Cailfornia queen breeding areas 
>> could create a new round of tracheal susceptibility in the USA...

Is there any proof backing this up?

I have had years of extensive experience with stock from a number of 
Australian suppliers, and I have not found their stock to be particularly 
susceptible to tracheal mite.  Au contraire.

This sort of speculation -- unless there is some real evidence to back it 
up -- IMO is irresponsible, and -- if spoken in public at all -- should 
always be accompanied by a disclaimer that it is merely an idea, and there 
is no proof -- until there is, at least.

Most scientists are really careful not to say hypothetical things like this, 
since people fail to understand that it is merely speculation, and 
immediately believe that -- since it came from an authority -- it must be 
true.

I'm betting, though that the Aussie stock is not worse than the run of the 
mill US stock, and it actually, from my experience may be better.

Of course there some US suppliers who consistently offer bees that are 
strongly resistant to TM, and maintain a quality control on that trait, but 
I doubt that they are more than a small minority.  TM resistance is a trait 
that can fade fast unless actively maintained.

If anyone wishes to find the source of tracheal susceptibility in US bees, 
one need look no further than this chart:
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/tracheal.htm which examines 
tracheal susceptibility in US commercial breeder colonies.

That data is a few years old now, but there is no reason to believe that 
things have changed. Maybe it is time to ask Baton Rouge to do the study 
again.

If they did, I would bet nothing has changed, and I'd even bet things have 
gotten worse in some quarters, since the spotlight has been off tracheal 
mites for a while.  Although I'm not suggesting that CCD *is* due to TM, 
there are enough similarities that TM could account for some of the reports 
of disappearances  -- ones that mimic CCD in some symptoms, but are not 
actually CCD. 

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