>
> > I find the idea of finding a colony - or even several colonies - that
> have resistance and then re-stocking the entire world from that small
> genetic base to be a recipe for the extinction of the honey bee.


It appears to me that the honey bee is well adapted to that scenario--of
recovering a population from a decimation event.  Due to polyandry, rapid
increase in colonies from even a single surviving queen would result in the
genes of the 15-40 drones that she mated with having a chance of being
recovered in the population.

The thing to avoid is extreme bottlenecking of the sex alleles.

Of interest is to read the scientific literature about introduced species,
which often pass through a severe bottlenecking event, but if they increase
rapidly, lose very little genetic diversity.

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

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