> In Europe you mostly run dark races which had been exposed to TM. In the
> U.S. we mostly run Italian bees which in the 80's had NEVER seen a TM. My
> Italian bees have always had problems dealing with TM. Treatment once a
> year costs around fifty cents plus labor. Left untreated for a couple years
> they start crashing in winter. I would rather use my high production Italian
> bees and treat than use so called TM resistant strains I have tried.

Isn't this backwards? I read:

> Soon after Br. Adam joined Brother Columban, thirty out of the Abbey's forty-six colonies were wiped out by a disease known as Acarine. All of the bees that died were of the native British black bee variety. This bee was renowned for being hardy, but somewhat ill-tempered. The bees that survived the outbreak were all of Italian origin.

> In 1919, after Brother Columban retired, Brother Adam was put in charge of the bees, and he set about rebuilding the colonies. His intention was to use cross-breeding to develop a new bee which would be hardy like the black bee, but disease-resistant like the Italian bee, and a good honey producer.

http://www.buckfast.org.uk/site.php?use=bees

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