Hello All, I've just found this list, having been directed to this thread, and wonder if I could offer the following thoughts. I do so as a largely 'armchair' beekeeper, but one who has spend a great deal of time thinking and learning about the issue. Grant Jackson wrote: "It sounds to me like we're trying to find the single strain of a universal bee when every environment and every beekeeper brings a different slate of skills and temperments to the table. Why can't our respective wings of the industry (the preservationist and the commercial guys, the hobbyist and the sideliner) work on a different strain of the bee that works for their respective niche, under their respective managerial schemes?" It seems to me that this is not about finding a strain of bee, but about adopting a methodology, a management system, that allows the bees to adapt to the pathogens. Any strain of bee in normal use will quickly become naturalised to the locality, as the daughter queens mate with local drones. So importing stronger than local strains is only a part of any solution - unless we wish to be dependent on a continuous supply of specially bred queens. There is no need for that at. We can adopt a methodology that continually improves the tolerance of our own bees to all kinds of pests and diseases, including varroa. It simply means adopting the key method of health maintenance used in all other areas of organic husbandry - selective stock-raising. In basic organic husbandry it is recognised that sexual reproduction produces a range of offspring, some of which are better and some worse suited to the environment. In Nature, natural selection of the fittest eliminates the weaker bloodlines, and promotes the stronger. In (old fashioned, pre WW2) bee husbandry, and in every other single field of stock keeping, the stronger parents are carefully selected to form the next generation. This mimicks nature, and ensures that those genetic mixes that work well, and only those, will be used to make the next generation. This method can be used with any strain of bee to promote varroa tolerance. It must be done continuously, as a health management system. Just as racehorse breeders carefully select for best parents, using the races to establish the best parents, and just as bee breeders select for desirable features like high productivity and ease of handling, strength against diseases, or 'health and vigour' must be actively selected for. The more this is done the better. It is quite easy; you just make a point of identifying and multiplying your best stocks, and taking out the worst. Gradually your stock becomes capable of taking care of the mites itself, and after a few years they are no more than a very minor nuisance. Our problem comes with treatments, in combination with uncontrolled male parentage.. As soon as you act to keep alive a faltering colony, you preserve and send into the next generation genetic combinations that should have been eliminated. All kinds of treatments thus genetically poison their local breeding pools. For that reason, the continuation of commercial operations that artificially maintain, or import 'dirty' bees (in the sense of unadapted to the local disease environment) is unfair to those beekeepers who are affected. And to the local wild populations that belong, if to anyone, to all of us. And, done on a large scale (as currently happens in most of the 'developed' world) the result is a permanent state of health crisis. This is unsustainable, and unnecessary. From the links page on my website (below) you can find directions to sites detailing the required management. Mike http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/ *********************************************** 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 Access BEE-L directly at: http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L