The recent large-scale trials in Europe by the Coloss group support the
hypothesis that locally-adapted stock handle parasite pressure better than
imported stock.  This is no surprise, biologically speaking.

My take on the Coloss study was: yes, the bees from the various regions seemed to be better adapted to those regions. But what is the connection to parasite susceptibility? 

One could make a case that this is not about resistance to parasites per se, but healthier bees would tend to fend off parasites better. The existence of locally derived healthy bees could be related to their being fine tuned to their local environment, like the bees Jamie Strange described in Western France. 

However, these bees were compared to imported stock, which is make have been weaker for reasons not related to region, such as the methods of queen rearing, or inbreeding. Back in the 1980s, when I raised thousands of queens to sell, I often thought that supersedure queens raised by the bees were better than the ones I made. 

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