Hi Peter

>> “the good old Italian bee“.

My reply may seem harsh, but it is not disrespectful...
The only 'good' Italian bee is dead one, or one that is in situ in it's 
natural habitat of Italy.

> The days of isolating and breeding "pure" strains of any sort of bee are 
> over.  Not only is it virtually impossible except on certain islands, but
> following the current bee research, isolation and inbreeding may actually 
> be a scourge.

Please do not equate pure breeding, with isolation and inbreeding... 
Pure breeding requires a large amount of diversity within an overall 
'specification' of closed population and gives rise to stability.

If you do isolate small populations you will run the risk of inbreeding, 
and you are particularly at risk of inbreeding if your bee of choice is 
the Italian, owing to it's low mating frequency. If breeding Italians is 
considered desirable then the breeding program needs to be about four 
times as big as with other races, just to cope with this low frequency.

> What is needed now is to leave behind the purebreed mindset and look for 
> an amalgamated honey bee with health and vigor as the chief criteria.

If the amalgam that you propose is so desirable why has nature failed to 
capitalise on such a system ?


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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