> >Rumors are circulating that the Dept of Ag along with the USDA are
> thinking about releasing sterile (irradiated) small hive beetles. I think
> this is a horrible idea. Our bees are already struggling with outrageous
> beetle counts -
What this effort is trying to do is cause sterile beetles to mate with non-sterile beetles, thus causing the resulting eggs to be sterile. If a lot of sterile beetles would mate with non-sterile beetles the resulting population expansion would be greatly reduced and in fact, the population of beetles might drop considerably because of no replacements from the succeeding progeny.
Mike in LA
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