Hello Alden & All,

Alden said:
> Lets not confuse "mite free" with survival"

Excellent point!

I might add that when ( notice I did not say *if*) the blood sucking new
breed of varroa destructor slips into the Brian mite free zone the world for
those beekeepers will change forever.

Building an organic  business on the notion the area will always be mite
free does seem a bit risky.

Many on the list know Terry Brown ( Australia) and I have become close
friends ( talk weekly at times by phone) and Terry has came to visit me the
last two summers (winter time down under). Articles about those visits in
ABJ.

The subject of many of our long conversations is VARROA. Terry realizes its
not IF varroa will come to Australia but WHEN.

Sooner or later a swarm with varroa will leave a ship and then the
infestation will began.

To prepare Terry Brown has been importing varroa tolerant Italian & Buckfast
queens from Italy to incorporate into his breeding program. Italy has been
fighting varroa almost a decade longer than the U.S..

On my advice Terry Brown has brought Dann Purvis (Purvis Brothers Apiaries)
to Australia to head up a selection and instrumental insemination (
II)closed breeding program. Similar to Sue Cobey's and Dann's ( Dann learned
II from Sue).

Brought in thousands of dollars of new II equipment and has been teaching
Terry's employees to do II.

Beekeeping for the 21st. Century.

I consider the Australian Bee import a good thing. Whenever you buy a
package you are helping improve the worlds bees through the above methods.

Something to think about.

 Australia has a strict import system. Australia will not allow the import
of even our VSH or SMR queen stock. The reason they give is they do not
trust even our DNA testing to assure our queens are AHB gene free
.
The not letting in queens from the U.S. through the import system was a blow
to the improvement of the Australian queen line. Terry Brown was willing to
invest the 4-5 thousand a queen ( the cost is paid even if the queen is
killed during introduction or is a drone layer)to import the best queens to
improve the line to *help*make varroa tolerant.

However the Italy varroa tolerant line seems to improve the varroa tolerant
qualities of the Australian line ( my personal testing)  when sent into the
U.S..

Ever since the first import I have been testing the varroa tolerance of the
Australian import bees. I was surprised as was Bell Hill Honey  that the
first import Australian Bees (which had never seen a varroa mite) had varroa
loads in August/ September low enough to not treat if so inclined.

 Bell Hill Honey chose to treat.

I left the test hives untreated and they did get a high enough varroa load
in late spring of the next year to treat. The last tested are needing
treatment the fall of the second season.

Sure the progress is slow but progress is being made. The hope by Terry
Brown is when varroa arrives he will be prepared and ALSO to send the best
bees he can into the countries he imports to. All of those countries have
got varroa.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison


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