Interesting discussion, commentary and contradictory experiences and experiments on the above topics...

Bee genetics is in its infancy and way behind that for humans and other animals.  A good number of reasons can be listed for this including the biology of honey bees and the small size of beekeeping industries compared to other agricultural ventures, despite the recent explosion of concern of honey bee "decline".  

The model that Harbo and Harris suggested of producing highly selected breeder queens for a resistance trait (VSH) and then using those to produce daughter queens outcrossed to "local" drones seems pretty logical, workable and there is good evidence that it works.  There are bad experiences and obstacles that can be pointe out, but what are the alternatives?  To continue with the status quo of highly susceptible but prolific genetics, sold with little scrutiny because of the high demand for queens and nucs?  To engage in expensive breeding efforts and maintenance of closed population breeding to maintain some form of racial purity or unique gene combination?

It may be necessary to at least temporarily relax on some long held paradigms on racial purity, unique genetic combinations, the costs of inbreeding and try new approaches.

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