Barry,
Hopefully the discussion will wake a few beekeepers up!  I will give a quick
update on what I am working on and you can forward to Dee & Ed if you want.
On July fourth I took delivery of SMR queens from Glenn Apiaries of the two
lines *Red* & *Yellow* developed by Dr. Harbo from the bee lab at Baton
Rouge. They have been introduced into nucs and we are grafting today at noon
the first of the breeder queens larvae. The first batch of queens will be
allowed to mate with a five year survivor hive which I removed from a
building last spring. The first four year period is only by statements from
the owner of the building. They are currently the lowest mite load of any
hive I have got by both sticky board & ether roll. We are having to use
those bees because we won't have fertile drones from either of our SMR lines
for another month. The next batch which I am requeening with will be mated
in our remote yard . Red line for grafting and Yellow line for drones to
keep down further inbreeding. Harbo says open breeding has produced
excellent results in varroa control but I believe the SMR line will simply
do better if kept pure. The two SMR lines are dark and look carniolans as do
my survivor queen. Good luck with your projects!
Bob