On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 13:46:22 GMT, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>personally, i'd rather keep bees that don't require treatments from me in 
order to survive.  i don't know how that can happen unless those that 
can't are culled or left to die off on their own.

You're missing a very important way of "how that can happen."  Identify 
the hives that are going to die/survive beforehand.  In other words, don't 
wait until the bad genetics "die off on their own."  Requeen them before 
they die off.  If you want them to die for the good of the race, why do 
you want them producing drones in the interim?  If you think the 
advantages of local stock outweigh the advantages of the big, commercial 
queen breeders, then requeen from your own 'mite-resistant' stock.  Having 
requeened (or planning to requeen) the hive, what's the harm to the race 
of intervening to knock the mites back to a manageable level?  For that 
matter, the process of requeening itself might suffice to knock the mites 
back to a manageable level, depending on how you requeen.  In short, if 
you can figure out where things are headed ahead of time, there's no 
biological advantage to letting hives die.  Just breed from the hives that 
survive without treatment.  And accelerate the selection process instead 
of raising drones from poor stock and killing off hives that could be used 
to advance your breeding goals (and keep you profitably in business.)

I would agree that letting susceptible stock die might be better in the 
long-term than keeping everything in the breeding pool, but there are 
several reasons why those aren't really the choices we're faced with.

Eric

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************