Peter OK ! You are right ! But ... => (excuse my 
poor English but do good English is a big job for 
me for 50 years. Even with Google, but thanks)

>On the other hand, they have alternative 
>mechanisms for preventing and controlling 
>disease, such as extreme fastidiousness in the 
>nest, collective antiseptic materials 
>(propolis), and quite probably sick bees 
>voluntarily remove themselves from the hive. 
>None of these things is foolproof, of course.

but ...
But it seems that this meticulousness and its 
results is not an evolutionary advantage, because 
if one tests the HYG according Spivac 
<http://www.pedigreeapis.org/biblio/artcl/spivakHYG-AFB01en.pdf>, 
we get a range of different results from very 
clean (cleaned in less than 12 hours) and sluts 
(not cleaned up after a fortnight, and it 
stinks). And obviously, if you select the drones 
in hives for this character, we see the growing 
number of hygienic colonies significantly. But in 
nature, this does not seem (it is not) an real 
evolutionary advantage.

We are lucky here in Europe to have mating 
stations (but not enough!!) where small 
beekeepers can fertilize their queens for a 
relatively small fee (5-15USD/queen). Colonies 
that come out of there are far more "pleasant" 
and productive as the average of the colonies.

Every year, I go with fifty NUCs for 4 friends 
and me ... and we ride 2x 300 km to put and take 
them after a fortnight. And it's worth it. Bees 
are significantly softer and much more workers 
(honey).



-- 
Cordially
Jean-Marie

TOUT NOUVEAU ... VERY NEW

Home page : <http://www.pedigreeapis.org/>
Library
Biblio (full texts)  ... library exclusively 
teachings of Brother Adam in 5 languages.
<http://www.pedigreeapis.org/biblio/biblio_BA.html>
Biblio (full texts) ... library of advanced 
beekeeping ... over a hundred articles etc. in 9 
languages ...
  <http://www.pedigreeapis.org/biblio/biblio.html>

New host address : university of Namur ... the old address works also yet...
Pedigrees: <http://perso.unamur.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/>
Dernières mises à jour:   Letzte Updates:  Last update:
<http://perso.unamur.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/update.shtml>

PS
Brother Adam was busy with bees of Buckfast Abbey from 1919 to 1992.
He created the Buckfast strain and developed a farming method based on
  - punctilious observation of colonies,
  - controlled mating and a
  - ruthless selection.
Brother Adam never sought to appropriate this 
Buckfast bee, which is why we are privileged to 
continue its work today, using the genes he 
slowly selected.

<http://perso.unamur.be/~jvandyck/homage/>
If you're tempted by a buckfast old stock, 
without any consanguinity, see Carsten Dalbøl 
Queens (CD Denmark)
<http://perso.unamur.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/archiv.html#CD>

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