Gordon Scott writes:
>
>Wrong! Varroa is new to Apis melliferra. Varroa and Apis _cerana_
>have been coexisting, at present A.M. cannot do so.
 
I wonder what the strategies are that apis cerana has developped for dealing
with the mites.  Are they biochemical or behavioural?  Is it possible to
cross breed the two species (possibly using artificial insemination)?  This
would be a pretty drastic path to a solution given the years of breeding
that have led to present a. melifera, but constantly exposing the bees and
honey to toxic chemicals is a pretty drastic path to follow also!!!
 
I have only been keeping bees for eighteen years but I have seen natural
selection operate quite quickly on my hives.  I haven't really selected for
honey production.  I have a ready and closeby pollination market because I
am in the midst of a blueberry area.  The bees used to come from Florida
until the border was closed because of mites (tracheal at that time!).  I
always tried to winter them, but only about two thirds would survive.  Then
the bees came from New Zealand or Australia which are mite free, but they
still didn't seem that comfortable with Canadian winter.  The last few years
I haven't had to buy any packages and I've been able to increase my colonies
by 50 % each year and still harvest considerable honey.  The bees that
couldn't winter here under my lax management died.  Those that could
survived and increased.  I may have improved my wintering techniques a
little by improving ventilation,  but I attribute most of the bees survival
lately (95% last winter, and haven't found a dead colony so far this winter
out of 160) to natural selection, because I haven't been selecting.  So the
selection pressure has been on survival and the ability to multiply (I hate
to admit it, but I've been so busy with my dairy farming that I just divide
the hives that are getting too strong or starting to make swarm cells.)
 
Anyway, to get back to the mites:  It seems to me that as long as people
keep using chemicals that natural selection cannot operate.  Yet I admit
that most beekeepers need to use chemicals to keep their bees.  Maybe what
is needed is a few fairly isolated areas where the beekeeper(s) do not use
chemicals and the only selection is for survival.  Other beekeepers would
have to keep sending bees into this area, because most of them would keep
dying from mites.  That would be the beekeepers contribution to the program
that Roy keeps talking about.  Nobody is going to stop using chemicals
because his or her bees are going to die.  But if we kept sending bees to
this "selecting area" from all over the continent, then maybe the odd hive
might survive.  And that is what we would have to breed from and then cross
breed with bees with superior traits and send the daughter colonies back
into the the selection area.  It isn't easy, but I don't see how the traits
can be selected for otherwise.
My two cents worth
   Stan Sandler
p.s. I just read Diana Sammataro's letter, and that answers some of my
questions about the mechanisms {known) for mite resistance.  I wonder which
of these apis cerana is using?
 
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