>  Am I correct in  reading this as referring to your operation, and that
you managed to keep bees alive, but did not get production?

I realize the question is for Dee but will add my two cents worth about the
search for varroa tolerant bees.

I was very glad when I began my research into varroa tolerant bees I did not
use all my hives. Only the amount I felt I could afford to lose production
on.Certain traits are common to most varroa tolerant bees and in my opinion
the Russian bee is the poster bee for those traits.

Most shut down brood rearing at the slightest change in the weather, many
are not prolific and many are hard to "trick into brood building" (yes trick
is what commercial beekeepers do to get the populations needed for
pollination and big honey flows).

I believe in time varroa tolerant bees will be as productive as commercially
available lines but right now I don't believe they are.
My first experiments with daughters from my two SMR II breeder queens was
pitiful. Production was out of the question with those bees. Even the F3
generation had poor brood viability.

Zero production from 125 queens.

Right now with most varroa tolerant bees you have to be willing to accept
their traits in order to stop treatments. A trade off many hobby beekeepers
are willing to make.but  hard for those trying to survive in a very
competitive bee business.

I remember back in the fuel crunch of the 80's I bought a fuel regulator for
the gas line on my truck. I was going to save fuel ! Which I did! Problem
was I would floor the truck and barely had enough power to climb a hill.
Needless to say I removed the chrome fuel regulator and it sits in my shop
as a reminder of me not thinking things through. I should have known what
the result of reducing the fuel line size in half would be!

bob


-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---