>
> >I do not place credit solely at the colony level for the hardier bee,  But
> IMO, much of the credit goes to the population as a whole and its
> sustainability against disease and pests.


Joe, that is the gist of what I am seeing.  In nature, evolution happens at
the population level.  This is especially true in bee colonies, where the
"organism" has some 15-20 parents (the queen and all the drones that she
mated with).  So any colony of bees reflects a cross-section of the local
population.

What I'm finding in the population that I deal with (my managed colonies
plus the escapees and ferals within mating distance) that there is a bell
curve of mite resistance across the board.  There are always a few colonies
that control mites well themselves, and a number at the other end that
don't.  It is heartening that the median is slowly shifting to fewer mites.

The problem for those such as I who depend upon income from bees to pay the
bills, is that it can be costly (in lost colonies) to sustain a selective
pressure to eliminate mite-susceptible colonies.  I do the best I can by
trying to eliminate any mite-susceptible colonies from my mating yards.
This requires the sampling of every colony to determine mite levels.

At this point in time, I still cannot maintain an economically viable
commercial operation without the occasional treatment.  Last year, we had
good results with a winter oxalic dribble, a bit of drone trapping, and a
couple of Apiguard thymol gel treatments.

I'm curious to hear from some of you who run Russian bees...

Randy Oliver

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