> Natural selection in the feral (and to some 
> extent in the managed) honey bee populations 
> hasn't stopped.  

But after only 28 years, how can this be said with a straight face?
This is the essential myth of how "treatment free" is going to "save the bees".

* * *

I often disagree with Jim on this that and the other, but here I do agree. First, evolution is a large scale long term process. Next, it is essentially undirected. Evolutionary theory fails one of the scientific principles in that it doesn't really allow us to make predictions. Human directed breeding is fairly predictable, within strict parameters; evolution is not.

> Bees today are more resistant to varroa 
> than when varroa first arrived (and far 
> more resistant to tracheal mite).  

And there are specific people to thank for their efforts in this work.
There was not any sort of "natural selection" at work in either achievement.

* Agree. This stuff doesn't just happen. Except in very large scale populations like those in the wilds of Africa or South America. But again, a banana will never adapt and become a mango, no matter how much you might wish it were so.

> I've visited plenty of apiaries that are 
> founded with non African feral stock 
> that have acceptable loss rates.  

If only there was a requirement that all queens be marked by the producers.
Then one could see how many "ferals" are anything but.

* Despite a few studies implying subtle differences between "feral" and domestic stock, the boundaries are largely imaginary. I personally had to eat my hat on this one. I thought that domesticated species were materially different and could not survive in the wild. Now I realize that very few examples exist where a domestic animal cannot "go wild." 

> We are watching an evolutionary process. 

Sorry, no, we are seeing the better stock swarm, and be mis-identified as "feral surviors".
There are no magic beans or magic bees.
Overtly breeding both tracheal and varroa resistance is well-documented.
Marla Spivak did not win her MacArthur grant in a poker game.
The Danka/Harbo/Harris team did not get a USDA award in 2013 for failing.

* * *

You would have to add Tom Rinderer to this list. The Russian bees, regardless of one's opinion of them, did not happen through evolution, nor accident. Actually, they required thousands of hours and millions of dollars. It is not for nothing that the human race has been hard at work trying to develop varieties of plants and animals better suited for our purposes. 

It reminds me of studying the native people of Southern California. They lived on nasty little acorns, some weeds if it rained, probably a little deer meat, and for salad: kelp. There was so much dirt in their food that their teeth were ground to stumps by the time they were forty. But hardly anyone lived past forty anyway.

These discussions are good for bringing out all sides of the various issues. I don't presume to be right. I try to listen as much as possible, and dig up stuff that neither I nor you all have seen before. By the way, I am on vacation, hence free time to peck away at the keyboard. Best wishes for an awesome summer!

P

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