Hello Beepeople.
The current discussion about mite resistant bees made me wonder what
happened to some apparently good breeding material:
 
In an article from 1992 in the journal "Apidologie" F. Ruttner et al.
describes a strain of
Apis mellifera carnica with active defence against varroa. The article is
referred by E. Southwick in the American Bee Journal sometime in 1992 (as
far as I remember) he included a picture from the original article as well.
The bees of this strain apparently mutilate the mites e.g. "bites" off the legs
of the mites. According to the article this strains of bees had good
owerwintering capability WITHOUT treatment. The bees were selected by
an Austrian beekeeper named Alois Wallner.
 
Does anyone out there know what happened to this strain of bees?
Is it possible to by breeding material (queens or semen) from this strain?
 
References: Apidologie (1992) 23, 173-187 Active defense against Varroa
mites in a Carnolian strain of honeybee (Apis mellifera carnica Pollmann).
 
Thank you
Regards
Morten Petersen
Denmark, Scandinavia
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