>>Wrong. For example, when varroa hit the US a lot of beekeepers went out of business. They were the ones who wouldn't or couldn't adjust their management techniques to the changed game. Many are also in business who did not change their game. I am not supporting or arguing against any one style of beekeeping, I am simply looking at this from a historical perspective. I am exploring what history as shown concerning the assignment of cause for mortality, and is possible implications to beekeeping. There are many examples of 'ones who wouldn't or couldn't adjust,' ie: ferals and beekeepers refusing to adjust and treat colonies here in the USA and other parts of the world, and surviving and thriving in spite of this refusal to adjust. The miss-assignment of blame as has been done during the 70's and the current epidemic, in fact, inadvertently served the beekeeper well for centuries, by allowing the resistance mechanisms to develop in the honeybee, without interference from man. honeybee die offs, historically have tended to be short and abrupt, subsiding in a year or two. From Virgil in 29 B.C.E. blaming the Gods for sending "a plague among thy thriving bees", to the beekeeper from Illinois during the 1911- 1912 dieoff stating; "the weather made the bees lazy." In spite of these miss-assigning of blame, and subsequent miss-assigned remedies, the 'plagues' tended to be short and abrupt, subsiding in a year or two. In modern times, with proper assignment of blame, we begin to see plagues in honeybees lasting several years or even a decade. One might hypothesize that 'one reason' for this may be that knowing the cause, promotes the creation of remedy's designed to lessen the impact to the beekeeper, prolonging the development of natural resistance, whereas, not knowing the cause, and therefore not applying 'proper remedies' would better serve to promote a more rapid development of natural resistance in honeybees. Best Wishes, Joe Waggle http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ *********************************************** 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 Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm