>We got Varroa here in the early 80ties...I like to imagine what could have
>happened when we had done 30 years ( alot of mite generations) of IPM and
>selection in stead of just treating everything and select for yield and
>non-aggression mainly.

Actually Lennard the search for the varroa tolerant bee in the U.S. started
the same year as first found. The Baton Rouge Bee lab led the search. We
sent survivor queens from all over the U.S. for the researchers to work
with. Instrumental insemination was used and volumes of records on breedings
happened.

failure was announced after around five years by Dr. Harbo. I consulted with
Dr. harbo on numerous occasions as to why simply breeding from survivors
and those hives with the lowest mite counts failed to produce results.

My good friend Dann Purvis worked very hard with the "live and let die"
method but results always seemed variable. Dann and I both had backgrounds 
in
fish breeding ( Dann fresh water and me salt water fish) and Dann applied
those principals to his bee breeding. Dann used instrumental insemination
(II) like the bee lab ( and taught me II). Used added varroa pressure (which
I consider the most important aspect of searching for the truly varroa
tolerant bee).

Then SMR was felt to be the missing link. However as soon as one quit using
the queens and out breeding occurred the varroa tolerance started dropping.

Dr. Shiminuki ( ret. head of the U.S.D.A.-A.R.S.) felt it would take at
least 20 years for Baton Rouge to come up with a truly varroa tolerant bee .
So far little has changed. The V.S.H. line adds valuable genes to your bees
but no line of bee has been produced which in a *commercial situation*(
which is really what matters as pollination is more important than hobby
beekeepers hobbies and honey can be imported)
that can handle varroa without treatments.  The U.S. beekeeping industry is
doing the best it can to survive.

These are hard times and each year the numbers of those keeping bees for a
living and doing the nations pollination gets smaller. I always listen to
the views of the hobby beekeepers which in the Midwestern Beekeepers today
is 99% of the membership but I tire explaining why many of their ideas are
not new and millions of dollars have been spent on trying to find a varroa
tolerant bee.

The WHOLE industry does not need to go off treatments to solve the problem.
Plenty of smart people with experience in II and bee breeding are working on
the issue. When the bee is found then the industry will convert over.

The Russian bee has promise and perhaps in the future with breeding will be
the bee commercial beekeepers are looking for.

bob

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