Most beekeepers simply keep complaining while they wait for someone else to solve the varroa problem.  We can keep throwing band aids at it (mite
treatments) or we can each personally contribute to the long-term solution to the problem.

Any single large commercial beekeeper has more colonies to select from than do all the varroa resistance breeding programs combined.  Based upon what the researchers at Baton Rouge learned from their selection programs, the main thing slowing progress on coming up with mite resistant bees is lack of colonies monitored for rate of mite buildup.



I would respectfully disagree.  How long have you been working on it??  I know you have thousands of hours invested,  as well as many others with a lot of skill at what they are doing,  from Marla and hygenics to Purdue ankle biters, and many more.

All those great minds  still working on it with no repeatable successes as of yet,  the possibility of a commercial operation tracking and keeping records of queens(they would have to be marked to eliminate that brood break variable) is so remote as to be a waste of a lot of man hours and false leads.    
Queen breeders have been and continue to work on it.  The ability of the commercial guy running honey or pollination to collect good and accurate data is a bit of a stretch of resources and abilities.   Heck I mark hives with the queens origin,  but I promise some of those lids get swapped on occasion, and many queens get replaced we don’t know about.



Charles

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