Well, I didn't get to sleep, so here we go again, picking up where we left off.
I appreciate your comments Jim and hopefully by kicking this around a bit we'll
get others joining in to correct any errors and to add more things we miss...

> ...Beekeepers feel powerless to participate effectively in steering research
to
> practical solutions.  I think that is why beekeepers haven't
> enthusiastically and monetarily supported research.  There is a perception
> of a disconnect between the scientific community and their ultimate
> customers.

This is always a bone of contention, since 'pure research' has a certain cachet
in academic circles, and 'practical research', although loved and appreciated by
the unwashed masses who pay for all research (me & my buddies, directly or
indirectly) is considered a little less elevated in many scholarly circles.

I'm personally not sure that I feel comfortable discriminating in favour of
'practical' work over  purely scientific work, since both yield useful results
beyond just pushing back the veil of Ignorance.  Maybe I spent too long in
school, but I do think that knowledge is power and that some of these studies
into varroa for varroa's sake may just unlock the door to a permanent control or
management method(s) before the various empirical studies do.  Having said that,
when funds were limited and I had to make a choice on projects to fund (when
sitting as a board member), I chose the ones that looked most likely to put
money into my pockets, and those of other beekeepers, most quickly.

> 5.  Knowledge about Varroa is increasing but not much is of practical value.

It helps to know your enemy and his habits.

> I've often said that beekeepers will have tolerant stock before science can
> understand the mechanism (genetic or otherwise) and develop strains of bees
> that will be of practical use in the apiary.

I agree and it was interesting to hear one breeder claim tentatively to have had
some good results. Time will tell.  I am really interested in the HIP program
that Jack Griffes is working on in conjunction with many others.  They have a
dogged determination that I wouldn't bet against.  In fact I'd put some money on
their nose.

> The tolerance trait may be recessive, like HBTM tolerance, requiring expensive
monitoring, development, and maintenance of the stock.

I wonder about this.  For one thing, I suspect that tolerance may require a
combination of many traits, with a number being recessive.

Speaking of recessive traits, hygienic behaviour seems to be getting a lot of
talk these days, and at Apimondia, and has now apparently become something that
is taken for granted as being an essential selection criterion in any serious
attempt to breed bees.  I can remember when hygienic behaviour was a novel idea
and I think Steve Tabor was the major proponent of the idea and methods of
detecting it before it became popular.   FWIW, Steve Tabor has been claiming for
as long as I can remember that AFB can be eliminated in short order by breeding
for hygienic traits.  Seems to me Bill wilson told us back in the '70's about
someone (maybe him) having bred a line of noticably AFB resistant bees within
about 5 generations as an experiment.

There seems to be a consensus -- often expressed at Apimondia -- that hygienic
behaviour is part of the solution to the puzzle that varroa has become, and I
was pleased to hear reports that hygienic bees can be as productive, and did
they say gentle?, as unselected bees.

Hygienic behaviour is apparently recessive, and as such apparently requires that
both parents possesss the gene in order for it to be expressed reliably.  I
learned that at Apimondia.  I made me think: that means that AI is necessary, or
an area -- eventually a continent -- flooded with the Right Kind of drones.

> Any practical impact may be 20 years in coming because it will probably take
that long for the genetic factors that result in tolerance to become spread
around in our genetic pool given the fragmented approach to genetic improvement.


> 8.  Economic threshold:  I don't think anyone can accurately define this
> threshold because the science has not been done.  To do so I think would
> require a definition of colony health, which hasn't been done to my
> knowledge.  It would also require the definition and measurement of the
> various impacts to a colony from variations in nutrition, brood survival,
> the colony and hive environment, the impact of migratory movement,
> pesticides, colony management, and management economics.  These and several
> others would all impact mite survival, population levels and hence the
> economic threshold.

This is what makes beekeeping an art, I guess.  We have to intuit
workability/profitability for many of the things we do, from feeding to
wrapping, to buying vs raising queens...

> 13.  "The Israeli hive platform thingy."

The Bee Guard "Easy Bee Rig" http://www.bee-guard.co.il/

> I don't see it as practical for economical reasons alone.
> One story brood nests don't work here in Washington State
> except with poor queens.

It can accommodate double brood nests using an extension piece and the neat
thing is that the supers do not have to be lifted off to work on the brood
chambers.

I have p[roblems with the idea that I would want to pull all the supers at once.
I've seldom seen all supers on a pallet of four hives need pulling at once.  And
I doubt their claim that I could drive the bees down through four standards at
once with BEE-Go.

Anyhow it is an interesting idea, and I'd like to play with one.  It's one of
those things that I'd have to use to decide.  I doubt it would work beyond the
queen yard, but it might be the basis of some innovation on my part.

Given a choice, I think like Babe's idea better.  It's cheaper, and all the
supers WILL be filled at once.  But, I like to keep an open mind and try new
things.

BTW, Don't let me forget to talk sometime about 'fitness' of Apistan tolerant
mites and the question of the degree of individual mite tolerance (whether it is
a matter of degrees or yes/no).  I have come to think -- even more than
before -- that much of the discussion here on BEE-L about the mechanisms of
developing tolerance by 'abuse' of Apistan may be predicated on concepts that
are questionable in view of what is now known about the resistance mechanism.

allen
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