John Horton writes:

> People have real doubts about whether a good mite resistant bee exists. I feel that there is real forward progress here and look forward to being part of it.

Yes, those doubts are real. I have long been interested in bee breeding, and sold high quality stock back in the 1980s. However, bee breeding has definitely not solved this problem for everybody. Elke Genersch summarizes:

> Based on many research projects aimed at identifying all the putative factors afflicting honey bees, evidence is accumulating that one of the major causes - not to say, the major cause - is the association of viruses to these colony losses, which so far existed as covert infections in the honey bee population, with an invading parasite, V. destructor. This combination ‘V. destructor plus viruses’ has triggered the emergence of overt viral infections with significant and sometimes fatal symptoms on both the individual bee level and the colony level. Nowadays there is no doubt that the impact of various syndromes involving V. destructor and bee viruses is a global threat for apiculture.  

> Until now, the spontaneous or artificial selection of honey bee lines more tolerant to V. destructor infestation have produced poorly productive colonies. However, no simple and economically acceptable treatment against virus infections are in view for replacing the heavy and not always efficient acaricide treatments which have already selected resistances in the target species. Repeating previously observed scenarios, the dramatic increase in emerging virus diseases in the honey bee may still be worsened by the continuing development of international exchanges and the potential dissemination of still undiscovered viruses or other agents that may favor their active multiplication. 

Emerging and re-emerging viruses of the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.)
Elke Genersch and Michel Aubert. 
Veterinary Research. Volume 41, Number 6, November–December 2010	
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