Greetings, Bob et al.

Recently there were two major posts explaining how commercial beekeepers 
must maintain the status quo because they must pay their employees, among 
others, so that their children too can go to school, etc.  Given such “cut-
throat” business environment, as Bob agrees to disagree, one must do 
anything and everything to keep his/her business afloat, including such 
unproven measures as shop-towel methods, perhaps, out of desperation.  
Hence the constant blame against the scientists for being so slow in 
developing a quick shot in the arm so that they can go on business as 
usual, and hence the rationale as to how the bee-researchers are always 
years behind the practical commercial beekeepers, as if the researchers 
were intellectually challenged blooming baboons.  Not so.

We are talking about short-term and long-term gains here.

Micro-vision beekeeping celebrates instant gratification, here and right 
now, profit or sink, for I have mouths to feed, whereas the proponents of 
sustainable beekeeping are pointing out the long term survivability of 
bees and beekeeping beyond our generation and beyond our great grand 
children’s generation, not a myopic vision, but a macro-vision from a 
holistic point of view. 

Frankly people get laid off by the thousands due to this near-sightedness 
in any industry.  GM and Ford had laid off a few hundred thousands because 
they have failed to envision the long-term sustainability of their 
business model: when people from other countries (Europe and Asia, for 
instance) were focusing on fuel-economy, they kept producing gas-guzzlers 
for a short-term gain, not realizing that the finite limit of the 
available fossil fuel and its potential price-hike that had happened once 
before, a CCD in auto industry they decided to ignore for immediate gain.  
GM and Ford, among others, are sinking because they were myopic in relying 
on SUV’s and F-150 pickups, respectively.  Yes, I too have seen Hummer 2 
caught in rush-hour traffic doing 5 miles per hour, which made me 
think, “Going off-roading somewhere, Buddy?”

Ford has been proud for its hybrid SUV, arguing it is the first hybrid SUV 
in America when in fact Toyota Prius, though not an SUV, has been around 
far longer than its green frog.  Frankly we are behind in innovative and 
long-term thinking in many areas, often blind-sighted by capitalism.  
Invariably, our so-called innovation is a market-dressing, a gimmick for 
suckers.  What happened to American ingenuity?  We lag behind because of 
our greed.

Even if one has developed mite-resistant strain of queens, what makes you 
think that I would be selling them, knowing fully well they would be put 
right back into the same-old practice of commercial bee-having?  All the 
papers indicate that mite-resistance takes time, at least a decade or so 
via natural selection.  Even if one finds a mite-fighting or mite-
resisting strain, the queens, having just barely survived the ordeal of 
vigorous selection, will not be so perfect that if one buys these queens, 
one will be off the chemicals overnight.  Nothing is so black and white in 
real world.  This is a pain-in-the-ass, gradual process, a gray area 
common in nature, demanding a long-term, delayed gratification, and 
patience.  Thankfully, however, given bees quick regeneration, such strain 
is bound to come sooner than we might think, especially in the advent of 
AHB’s.  In fact, such strains might be here right now, unawares.  

But how can you put these strains right back into the old practice and 
EXPECT a different result?

Yoon, a sideliner with fewer than 100 and going for longer than twenty 
years  

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