>>The point is, if nobody supports the quest for better, mite resistant 
bees, the folks that 
>>raise them will give up on that and go back to 
raising "golden italians". Whereas, if we 
>>buy queens from resistant 
stock and continue to select from those, we will gradually 
>>weed out the 
junk. 

Advancing the propagation of VSH stock is a rather iffy proposition.  I've been thinking about my own situation and how I could obtain good strains of VSH stocks after several years.   The only way I see it is to get the beekeepers in my county on the same page and work at requeening all of our hives with VSH stock.  This is not something that could be done overnight as we as a group in the county are not organized, most of us cannot afford to go right out and buy VSH queens and requeen all of our hives, and - we have no control over the feral stock in the county which has rebounded over the past couple of years.  (SIDE NOTE: We have started seeing a lot of swarms in the spring these past two years.)
We as a county group do no hygenic testing of our stock and so have no idea of just how varroa tolerant our colonies are other than by what survives from one year to the next without any treatment.  Personally, I have little idea of how most of the other beekeepers control their mite levels, if they do.   I do know that most of us are now using screened bottom boards as part of an IPM process.

My county is a large one and I believe if we beekeepers here could get organized, that over a period of three to four years we might be able to inundate the county with bees that exhibit strong VSH tendencies.  It would involve cooperation, continual testing of hives, and general assistance to each other by all involved.  I have to admit that I presently do not do all that I could to promote VSH properties in my bees other than letting the bees go without any treatments other than the use of screened bottom boards.  BAD on me.  I've seen two colonies go down in the past three weeks and am pretty sure that the root cause was varroa.  I'm going to have to get on the stick with a more proactive control program.


Mike in LA

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