If you sit beekeepers, from large commercial operators to many of the  
current hobbyists, together with researchers, policy makers, funders,  
etc. in a comfy air conditioned conference room (or somewhere during  
the winter break in beekeeping tasks) and ask all to visualize the  
future, it is common to have conversations drift into the scenario  
that all would use resistant stocks and no chemicals.  Yet adoption  
and use of these stocks in the hot and stingy fields does not match  
the words in the comfy rooms.  Many of us involved in efforts to  
explore, develop, maintain and make available these materials ponder  
the troubling discrepancy and its causes.  Below is a potential list.   
Obviously in the patchwork of beekeeping modalities in different  
places and through time, different factors play varying roles.  But  
here it is, and if anyone thinks other factors should be added, or  
looked at differently, or finds a factor that is the main vector, it  
would be interesting to hear.

Intense loyalty to known stocks- Many beekeepers like the traits of  
bees they have maintained for many years (family generations?) whether  
their own or coming from known suppliers, or “pulled” as breeders from  
their production colonies every year using their selection criteria.   
Change to unknown material is obviously troubling or risky.
Partial resistance of even the purest available material - Most  
genetic material, even in research experiments, on average only slows  
the growth of varroa mites.  So some sort of additional monitoring or  
light treatment or delayed treatment is ultimately required.  Some of  
us have seen good numbers of colonies in controlled settings where the  
mite numbers (total, relative, drops, etc.) actually decrease in  
colonies, sometimes to the point where mites are hard to find.  If  
this were the average it would be equivalent to the best chemical  
treatment, but these colonies are not the most common in most  
"resistant" stocks.
Variable resistance between colonies -  Even if the average response  
to mites in a group of colonies is good, there is a lot of variability  
between colonies in responses.  If this variability is genetic, then  
this is a problem.  However, the known or perceived variability may be  
a consequence of more measurements in experiments with genetic stocks,  
whereas a lot of people making treatments simply rely on early results  
showing that treatments work well and uniformly.  And if a new  
treatment is applied soon after, that possible variability is not even  
detectable.
Complicated introduction and maintenance of traits -  The breeding  
system of honey bees (multiple mating, outcrossing, rapid turnover of  
reproductives), no reliable way of storing material, and the small  
size of the industry and market make the rapid incorporation to a  
useful level in any group of apiaries very difficult.  One cannot do  
the equivalent of a farmer going to the seed store and getting all of  
the material needed to plant the whole farm at one time.  The same for  
maintenance- true isolation is rare, and II is extremely laborious.   
AND those doing these things are not duly compensated for their  
efforts when one can go to “another seed store” and purchase queens  
for rock bottom prices.
Poor standards for stocks -  Anyone can put a name on anything and  
sell it with no problem.  A small set of breeder queens can be  
purchased, daughters reared from them in any environment and a label  
be put on the mated queens.  Even worse if the graft is made from a  
colony into which at one point a breeder queen was introduced.
Bad image of improved stocks -  Certainly many have judged the merits  
of stocks based on the expression of a number of commercially  
important traits in either breeder queens intended to be used as  
parents for outcrosses, or in material reared with some of the  
problems outlined in (e).  There are true problems in some material  
made available perhaps too early in a breeding program, but judging  
the breeding value of a colony or a stock from one experience or from  
word of mouth given all of the above issues is a bit unfair.

The alternative, consistent, reliable, uniform control by using  
products off the shelf is still the very attractive and risk-free. 
  
             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html