More from Charlie Mraz:
.> What we need is a storehouse of vigorous, hardy bees with completely new
blood lines to create that genetic diversity to select and crossbreed new
vigor and resistance into the bees which are now lost. To my knowledge, such
genetic stock cannot be found in the U. S. at the present time.

The first real genetics to help commercial beekeepers *in my opinion* came
with the Australian import.
Crossed with our Italians they produced hybrid vigor, flew earlier in the
morning and even will fly in a light rain.

By far the majority of commercial beekeepers want Italian bees and not
carniolan or Russian.My last few hundred of Carniolans were crap. Cost me
money to keep around. I also do not care for Russian bees and I have had
Russian bees for a few years including the release last year. However the
queens keep looking more like carniolans or leather Italians so maybe I will
like the Russians in the future. To many beekeepers saying you are not happy
with the Russian & carniolans is like saying bad things about the queen
breeders mother but It is what it is.

> This problem of genetic diversity with bees in the U. S. has neither the
> support of our beekeeping scientists nor of the beekeepers themselves.

You have to realize the way the industry was back in the early seventies. We
had no mites. The large commercial beekeeping families were expanding
rapidly. The outfit I was involved with expanded to around 10,000 hives in
the sixties. 25,000 during the seventies. Around 50,000 by the nineties
when mites reduced numbers and changed commercial beekeeping in the U.S.
forever.

To be honest we loved the bees we had before mites. The arrival of the mites
culled many of our best lines. Varroa culled hard some of our best lines
gone forever.

Breeding from the varroa survivors did not prove to be bees on a par with
the bees before varroa.

Varroa set back U.S. beekeeping genetics. Culling without a plan ( like with
varroa ) can change bees.
After the big varroa cull ( half the U.S hives was reported by the USDA-ARS)
we started seeing weird genetics. Spotty brood patterns and hives which
would not requeen after swarming.

After varroa we started seeing very poor bees. We blamed the queen
producers mostly but the queen producers were having big problems coming up
with enough queens for the industry let alone a bee which will tolerate
mites. When asked about genetics they would say. "Why should we spend money
on fad bees. Yugo etc when right now WE CAN SELL EVERY QUEEN WHICH WILL LAY
EGGS.

> After 40 years of effort I have not succeeded in getting any cooperation
> from large queen breeders to help produce and perpetuate this diversity of
> genes for resistance and to make it available to the many beekeepers who
> may be interested.

Beekeepers want these queens but do not want to pay extra for such queens.

Even today NWC, Minnesota hygienic or Russian queens can not be over a buck
or two higher or the queens will not sell.

Beekeeping research (which my friend Randy Oliver will attest to!) does not
pay very well. Years of searching for the survivor bee and only getting an
extra buck or two over the queen which is caged after only seeing a single
egg is not right but about sums the situation up.

> The big problem is to find resistant stock with which to requeen.

The big problem from my perspective is too find a bee like I ran before
varroa which is somewhat tolerant of varroa so I can treat less. I am close
to the bee I ran before mites in my Australian lines and the strain of
California Italian bees I run. Now if I could get by with a single formic or
thymol treatment a year I will be happy.

Unlike many beekeepers  I want almost no varroa in my yards. Less than 5 
mites in a
roll! I do not want a bee which (although surviving varroa) is chock full of
varroa mites year around. University of GA. research says up to 60 mites in 
a roll does
not need treatment as below varroa threshold.

The above is my take on the situation.

bob

50 years in beekeeping

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