Charles Mraz wrote:
> The races of bees that we had 50 years ago were completely different from these same races in the U. S. today. All races of bees in the U. S., Italians, Carniolans, Caucasians, are really no longer like the stock that came over here originally. No new blood has been added to the genetic pool for almost 50 years from the country of origin of these different races.

> Practically all of them through constant inbreeding and genetic degeneration have become susceptible to one or more diseases. Many strains of bees today cannot survive exc2pt under constant medication of drugs for Nosema, EFB, AFB, paralysis, etc. This is a dangerous situation. Drug therapy can never be a substitute for resistance to disease.

> We now have a station in the U. S. that is supposed to be a bank for preserving genetic strains of bees for future use. Unfortunately, so far as I have been able to observe, most of the strains being preserved are various degenerate freaks. What we need is a storehouse of vigorous, hardy bees with completely new blood lines to create that genetic diversity to select and crossbreed new vigor and resistance into the bees which are now lost. To my knowledge, such genetic stock cannot be found in the U. S. at the present time.

Gleanings in Bee Culture, December 1973

-- 
Peter L Borst
Danby, NY USA
42.35, -76.50
http://picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************