Beekeepers must learn the cardinal rule of husbandry: put best to best and
> eliminate the weak.  Selective breeding must occur in every generation, or
> increasing weakness will continue.  The 'medical' model of beekeeping is
> quite simply misbegotten, unviable.
>

I would contend that there is a big difference between growing your own at
home and moving bees from place to place for pollination. You can practice
good husbandry in both fields but success will only come from keeping your
bees isolated, hence you will have problems with pollination even if all are
great at adapting their bees to their location, which, with commercial
pollinators can be from just about anywhere in the US.

When I was in the Navy we would go to sea and by the second or third week
all communicable diseases that were present when we left had run their
course and the Dr. had little to do. We were isolated, adapted and healthy.
But put us back ashore and we were quickly back to the colds and flu (which
those ashore had adapted to while we were gone).

Same with commercial pollinators. You can have a splendidly adapted apiary
but when you move it to a field with 2, 4, 10 other splendidly adapted
apiaries from away. Even if all were "adapted" at home, the stuff that one
has adapted to may be a major problem for another. There are a load of bee
pathogens out there which may be supressed in one area (temperature,
moisture, light, whatever) but not in another. So you can have perfect
adaptation and healthy bees that die off at the drop of a hat when exposed
to all those from away "adapted" bees.

This is true for most systems, so we can have a continual discussion about
how healthy our bees are in our back yard, but have no idea how they will do
out "in the real world" of commercial pollination and multiple pathogens.
You cannot adapt to everything, otherwise we would be hip deep in dinosaurs.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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