"1) good luck getting data from those types"

This is entirely unfair.  Does anyone do tracheal mite counts?  No.  We likely all have some very low level of them but they are not a issue so nobody worries about them because they are not killing our bees.  When your bees are surviving just fine what data do you collect and why bother?  You just collect the honey they produce in excess or check to make sure they are not queenless or feed if they are short on stores.  That is exactly how we kept bees in 1975 and we all did fine.  I suppose a few people back then also had bears they had to keep out.  And skunks could be an occasional issue.  Both are still a problem for some of us.  You had to watch for AFB just like you must watch today.  It is totally clear some people can do this, and no more, today also and do just fine.  I sure wish I could.  But, I know I can not.  I also know that the mite control methods that we use today are not going to be effective forever in climates where mites are a problem.  I do not believe anyone is going to get genetics that will survive the dilution that is inevitable when a super queen is superseded or when a guy like me raises queens.  Randy may well be able to develop queen lines that will make it in his area and he may well be able to queen flood his area but what happens when he goes to almonds and a queen gets superseded?  And how does he deal with the drones from ferals that drift into his area constantly diluting his stock?  It will take intense selection every single generation forever to maintain that queen line.  Yet some people today are able to go with not treating for years and selecting for only things like honey production or non swarming and mites do not take down their hives.

If you want data what you need to do is not be critical of the people that have such bees.  What you need to do is set up a study like Bayer just published in ABJ with a thousand or so hives all over the country in commercial operations headed by queens from such stock.  Then you can find out if it is genetic, which I would bet against with 20 to 1 odds in favor of it not being genetic.  Then you would know it is environmental and could start to try and figure out what is in the local environment that allows those bees to survive.  Who is willing to fund such a study?  Seems to me that the commercial bee keepers should want a better queen and thus should be willing to fund the study.  If they are not willing to fund the study perhaps it is an answer the industry does not need.

Dick

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