Brian Hensel Wrote:
 
They reported that apistan is the
>only thing available to fight against varroa, which I think is
>inaccurate.  They didn't mention anything about essential oil research,
>or the possible breeding varroa resistant bee's.  I think that this is
>the real answer.  If we can somehow breed bee's to have a grooming
>habit, where they will groom each other, then the varroa won't have a
>chance to get started, even in those bee's that swarm.
>     If there are any queen breeders on Bee-L do you think that this is
>possible?  If there is a possibility to breed bee's to be good, groomers
>how much of this trait can be strengthened to the point that it is 100%
>affective?
 
I think what the News report ment by "Apistan is the only thing Available
to fight against vorroa", is that it is the only legal and proven means to
fight vorroa.  Essential oils is just an experimental solution right now
more reseach and work needs to be carried out before we can say that it
really works.
 
Breeding bees for toloerance of vorroa mites is the best long term
solution. Hygenic behavior, grooming behavior, mite infertility, shorter
development time are all possible solutions to breeding bees tolerant to
vorroa mites.  It is probbalbly a combination of these traits and others we
don't know about yet, that will give us the type of bees we want.
 
All of these traits can be bred for.  The use of Instramental Inseminations
(II) is essential to control the matings of the queens.  The problem is
that it is very expensive to run a breeding program using II.  But the
results are far faster and superior than using Natrually Mated queens.
Most Queen breeders in the U.S. don't us II in their programs regularly
(every generation) if they use it at all.  I know of only a couple breeders
that their brogram is based on II.  This is really sad for the U.S.
Beekeeping Industry.  Mexico has more queen breeder using II on a much
larger scale than the U.S. dose.  The are very persice in their colony
evaluations and do a very good job at producing quality stock that is
Africanized Bee free.
 
We can Breed a Vorroa Tolerant bee if we are willing to put the effort,
time and MONEY into a national program that will breed for a Highly
productive, gentle, mite tolerant bee.  I don't think any one queen breeder
is willing to do this alone.
 
Garrett Dodds