Steve Noble wrote:

> With respect to breeding, I was thinking that there are already too
> many things to target in a given breeding program to add targeting
> resistance to a specific virus to the list

I was not thinking of a breeding programme specifically aimed at DWV, or any 
other virus for that matter.  In assessing colonies I score them for a large 
number of things, e.g. sacbrood, chalkbrood, deformed wings, paralysis, 
tolerance of wax moth, as well as for temper and productivity.  All of this 
is recorded in my Stud Book program and the data is used when I select 
breeder queens.  Of course, it is rare to find a colony with a perfect score 
against all traits, so I then have to prioritise - and one of my top 
priorities is (and has been for a couple of years) a maximum score for no 
deformed wings.

Currently I often see quite high varroa loads in drone cells - 50% 
infestation in May/June would not be unusual - but I rarely see any deformed 
wings.  I would like to think that this is because I am selecting for bees 
that are resistant to DWV - but is this really so?  This week I had the 
opportunity to put this to Diana Cox-Foster at the SIP conference in Warwick 
(UK); she told me that there are at least two researchers in the US working 
on breeding bees that are resistant to DWV.

I would suggest that if we do not include resistance against DWV in our 
breeding criteria then we could, perhaps inadvertently, be selecting for it.

Over the past century or so, bees have been bred for a number of 
characteristics and some of these now seem somewhat irrelevant, if not 
unwise, given the problems that we face, e.g. selecting for bees that do not 
use propolis.  Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate what really matters?
Best wishes

Peter Edwards
beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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