>> 2.  If it is easier and more effective to breed  varroa tolerant bees, where are they all?

> That's too easy.  Dee has them.

Maybe I was too curt.  I should add this:

"Assuming we used Occam's Razor and take the simplest and most direct answer and not the embellished and almost mystical one".

And then go on to add...

So does Tom, and Charlie, and apparently Joe, plus a long list of people like Adam F, and even Dean...

The problem is that we can observe varroa tolerant bees in various spots, but it seems that their tolerance is often linked to location or restrictive management practices.  Commercial beekeepers need tough, prolific, industrial-grade bees, not bees which need special treatment or conditions

The Primorsky bees seem to exhibit tolerance anywhere they are tried as long as they are pure, but are not widely accepted for commercial applications.  Other tolerant bees seem to lose that property when moved to other locations. 

SMR (VSH) maintain the property to some degree when outbred, but the problem is that we have no widely accepted _commercial_ bee which reliably varroa tolerant -- yet.

There are plenty of experiments going on, and I ran into the Baton Rouge people up in New York State the other year, following a migratory group pf bees under observation, so the work is ongoing.

FWIW, my bees seemed to be pretty varroa tolerant, but then I got overconfident and was wiped out.

Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada  T0M 1Y0
51°33'39.64"N  113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/
Playing with oxalic vapour

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