>   but few (except Tom Seeley) seem to be studying bees
> kept  in a more or less natural way, or, if they are, they aren't telling
> us
> about  it.


Big question comes up here- what is natural? What Tom looked at was how the
bees coped with Varroa in a forest setting. What he found was not what had
been in the past, but something different. So was what was before, natural?
And what he found natural?

Truth is, both are but the former is the more or less steady state nature of
the bees from the time they went natural by escaping from their colonial
oppressors. Something about taxes, I guess (joke). That is actually the
state we want again, so studying the new state tells us that it is mostly
futile to breed bees in an apiary!

There are some, and they are on this list, who say they are breading bees
naturally without treatments, but I have yet to see it moved from the hobby
side to the commercial side, excluding managed AHB.

Bill Truesdell - who longs for the good old days when he had a pet T-Rex in
the back yard. Very natural.
Bath, Maine

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