Sorry for the choppy response but there is a lot I want to talk about here!

John Chesnut:

> >In my decades-long paired apiaries experiment,  I matched various
> prescriptions for keeping TF bees with a best-practices treated yard.
>

John, your experiment is interesting, and decades long!?!  Have you
published your data?

>They die of mites, but breed like rabbits.

I have not found an effective way of counting mites in the AHB hives
because when I shake a frame of nurse bees into the bin to be scooped up by
a measuring cup, unlike docile strains, AHB nurse bees fly away. If more TF
people could count mites we would have more data. (Yes that's a big IF
anyway!)

Disclaimer here, since Jerry Bromenshank said:
>One  has to ask, if even one person dies because  of an AHB colony, is
that worth the possible  advantage of varroa adaptation?
Please don't mistake what I suggest-- It is not that we should proliferate
AHB colonies, God forbid!  I am asking why the only outfit running a long
term "experiment" to try to breed out the aggressiveness, is one small
business in Texas? I know there are a few others as well- but my point is
that BeeWeaver is not doing large scale, data based, university funded,
published experiments, research and studies.

From Pete B:
>Researchers (e.g. Danka et al 1997; Rinderer et al 2001) have argued that
there would be no natural resistance to varroa, and that all unmanaged
colonies would be eliminated with only *especially bred commercial stock*
being able to survive. (Italics mine)
So they *don't* agree that all breeding programs are a failure as suggested
earlier. Obviously any such breeding trials would have to be done far away
from human populations. This would be a large and expensive proposition but
it is my belief that we need at least one large scale published study like
this. For example, Jose Villa asks

>Are we dealing with solid information, backed by experiments and
experience, or is it largely founded on myths and beliefs perpetuated in
the information age?  Clearly Africanized bees are successful feral bees,
but that is different from having documented defenses against varroa.

This is also my question. John Chesnut's trial suggests that there is no
defense against the mite other that "breeding like rabbits" but right now
it's anecdotal evidence. Meanwhile, my highly pedigreed queens are getting
treatments 3, 4, 5 times a year! Or as in the glycerin shop towels,
perpetually! While the rascal January africanized swarm whose queen I can't
replace until April, brings in massive amounts of pollen and nectar as the
pedigreed Europeans seem to be waiting for nicer weather.

While my standard hives might undergo a rash of crawling DWV-infested bees
on the ground, I have yet to see an AHB hive with that disease expression.

It's commonly repeated that there is a breeding "bottleneck" in the US. The
only way to improve that would be by bringing in outside bees' germplasm-
and we already have some here that although controversial, is crazy
successful. Yet very little large scale investigation has been performed
because it would require some fairly unique conditions. We have "bred out"
all kinds of undesirable traits, and bred in things like body color, low
swarm propensity, low propolis production etc. And I'm still having to
replace those highly bred queens at least once a year, sometimes 2 or 3,
and this after perpetual varroa treatments. Improvement in this situation
is really not optional. I'm watching and waiting.

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