Hi all
Naturally I am fully aware of the many sides of this issue. There was a terse back and forth on it recently:

> A recent review in the Journal of Apicultural Research offers thoughts on research needed to achieve sustainable control of Varroa destructor (Dietemann et al., 2012).  However, while noting that identifying and breeding honey bee strains resistant to V. destructor would be ideal, the authors state that we are "not close to any such sustainable solutions". We disagree with this negative characterization of the status of honey bees with genetically based mite resistance. 

> We agree with Dietemann et al. (2012) that the effectiveness of IPM programmes (presumably including genetically resistant bees) for varroa control, depends on the dedication and proficiency of individual beekeepers.  Honey bee strains that are resistant to varroa are a valuable re- source that beekeepers are using successfully. Although these bees have not completely solved the problem, we are in fact moving toward the ideal of sustainable varroa control described by Dietemann et al. (2012). 

Robert G Danka, Thomas E Rinderer, Marla Spivak and John Kefuss
Journal of Apicultural Research 52(2): 69-71 (2013)

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