>The problem of taking those queens and saying their daughters will be as
varroa tolerant as their mothers is still a gray area of queen [breeding].

Aye, and there's the rub!  You can breed bees that are completely resistant
to tracheal mite or AFB in a few years--I've done, as have many others.
 Varroa turned out to be a different story.

I've had  colonies which nearly completely suppressed varroa.  I've brought
in the best selected mite resistant breeders for years.  I keep mating
yards in the same locations year after year to build up a feral population
founded by swarms from mite resistant stock.  I breed only from colonies
which appear to have kept mite levels low.

Yet I have yet to be able to claim success at breeding stock that
*uniformly* keep varroa suppressed in the California foothills.  I can
clearly see that I (or the bees) am making progress, but it is
frustratingly slow.  The process is certainly not helped by the commercial
queen producers who continue to sell "mite candy" stock bred solely for
color and production, and thus continue to dilute the genetics of mite
resistant stock.

>I wonder if anyone has thought deeply about the changes that could be
taking place in the bee/varroa relationship over time in a given area.

More than you can imagine! : )


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm