>my supplier has colonies that have been going strong for many years
without mite treatments.  he has bred his bees from feral cut outs, and has
a large feral drone contribution for mating his queens.

I hear more and more of these success stories.  I would very much like to
see more researchers making the effort to track mite and virus dynamics in
these successful colonies in order to determine how they do it!  Dr Barbara
Locke did her recent thesis on the subject, studying Bond survivor
populations in Sweden and France.  The main mechanisms of resistance were
not grooming or VSH, which are commonly proposed as things that we should
select for.

Her findings support my view that the bees, via natural selection, will
come up with ways to deal with the mite/virus issue that we had not thought
of.
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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