> 1.  who is keeping productive bees that were 
> bred by any of the researchers that have been 
> mentioned, that are not using any treatments?  

Gosh, Dean - Dee just said:

"over 2100 members and growing", 
http://tinyurl.com/6fukbo

But you have to ask us over here on Bee-L
for names of people not using any treatments
with productive bees?  Why can't you give us a 
list of at least a thousand happy beekeepers
who meet your criteria?

Most beekeepers would not willingly don the 
hair-shirt of the dogma of "no treatments", 
as they would end up with the same sort of 
massive losses to things like Nosema ceranae 
that Dee Lusby had.

Beekeeping isn't a religion with dogma to most 
people.  It also isn't a competition to find out
who is the most faithful of the faith-based 
beekeepers.  It is a simple pleasure for many,
a labor of love for a few, and a struggle for 
profit for fewer still. None of them have much 
time for something that that is a bit like 
Scientology, but without the celebrities or 
extraterrestrials.  

For most beekeepers, flexibility is the best
tool, and dogma of any sort does for beekeeping 
what the Spanish Inquisition did for Catholicism.
If the past 20 years have taught us anything, it
should have taught us to have a deep and robust
toolbox of alternatives to deal with invasive
exotic pests, pathogens, and parasites of bees.

But the lesson is hard for the newer beekeepers,
as they haven't seen so much look so promising
and then turn out to be so disappointing.  

> clearly, we have at least a few examples 
> (dee, michael bush, eric osterland) of people 
> that have either bred their own stock...

And there is a clear and compelling explanation 
from Tom Seeley about what they actually "bred"
as opposed what they might THINK they were breeding.

Bill Truesdell did a fine job of summarizing here:
http://tinyurl.com/5e9ne9

But the bottom line here is the most plausible 
explanation for why the same results cannot be 
reproduced elsewhere is that Dee, Michael, and 
Eric have been unwittingly breeding for less 
virulent mites, and had the luck of being isolated
from other beekeepers. 

This tidy explanation fits everything we've seen 
in terms of subjecting bees to varroa under 
controlled conditions.  Colonies claimed to be 
"immune" proved themselves anything but by dying 
out more quickly than even the controls.

> what happens when bees are put onto comb from 
> deadouts due to nosema c. when no treatments, 
> fumigation, or irradiation is used? 

The bees tend to become reinfected with Nosema 
ceranae unless the comb is fumigated or sterilized.  
Eric Mussen would be the authority here - check 
out his newsletter.

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