Hello Peter D,
 
In a message dated 20/01/2010 02:40:27 GMT Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

It  amazes me that Brian seems to consider that all bees in Australia have 
no  resistance to anything and that Mike and Yoon believe the few which are  
imported to the US would have such an impact on the breeding selection work 
 being done there. I'm sure that many of your notable queen breeders would 
be  very insulted by that view.


My starting point is that any multiplication of colonies that does not  
involve selection is part of (indeed almost all of) the problem.  If you  
disagree with that premise then the rest will not have the impact  intended.  If 
you follow that, you will see that the greater the proportion  of (i.e.) US 
beekeepers taking care of their genetics, the better everything  will be for 
everyone.  Conversely, the greater the proportion of beekeepers  being 
casual with their genetics, the more the problems remain (and, in every  
likelyhood, the worse things will get).  This is a beekeeper problem, not  merely a 
'breeder' problem.  Both ordinary beekeepers and breeders are  causing 
their own difficulties by omitting the essential step of reproducing  from the 
fittest individuals.  
 
Your criticism above is thus mistargeted.  We are not talking about  the 
impact poor stock would have on breeders, but the impact it would have on  all 
and any stocks it comes into contact with through mating drones.  I am  a 
great admirer of the work of those US breeders developing and supplying  
resistant bees.  But we cannot simply instigate a reliance on bred queens  and 
nucs.  We have to raise the health of the whole population by getting  rid of 
the non-resistant individuals.
 
The chief culprit of weak genetics is medication followed by  reproduction. 
 This is not just failure to select the best adapted, but  positive 
encouragement of the worst.  Here we are speaking of imports,  but the same 
principles of course apply. The only bees that can be part of  the solution are 
resistant bees.  Otherwise they are part of the  problem.
 
My first assumption was that natural Australian bees would have no  
resistance to varroa, as the main problem, and a marker; and that bee breeders  
would make no little or attempt to instil such resistance.  I'm happy to  have 
been shown I'm wrong - in some cases.  That doesn't mean the issue is  dead 
- yet.  I'd like to ask the following:
 
Is there any statutory requirement that bees exported from Australia are  
bred to be resistant to varroa?  If not, what proportion of those colonies  
exported are likely to have little or no resistance, and so tend to undermine 
 the populations of the countries where they end up?  
 
Are there any plans to encourage breeding toward resistance (and genetic  
diversity) in the exporting community?  When might they be expected to come  
to fruition?  
 
(And then we'd have to talk about standards and certification...)
 
Is there any similar statutory requirement on the US side - that bees  
entering the US have a certain level of resistance to varroa, thus avoiding  
undercutting the resistance of local bees?  Are there any plans to  introduce 
such a requirement?  And so on. 
 
Mike
 

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