I started growing my own locally adapted bees shortly after starting
beekeeping close to 30 years ago. That was just when Tracheal mites came on
the scene. TM wiped out most of the apiaries in my area, so my bees were
inbreeding for a long period since there were no other apiaries near me.
They went from being vigorous, great bees to disease prone with Sacbrood
and other issues that I had never seen before.

So I bought queens and all was well from then on.

So I take the "local grown" movement with a grain of salt. If you really
did isolate your stock, my guess is you would eventually have the same
problems I ran into. It is not always the best characteristics that are
selected for, only winter survival in most of the trials I have seen in
Maine (and I would take the study spoken of recently about packages and
home grown with a semi full of salt).

The truth is, unless you can control your bee density in your area, the
bees you end up with are a kluge of everything around. After my experience
of being isolated from any competition, I welcome it. I get queens
impregnated by drones that originated from nucs, packages and established
colonies and consider myself the better for it.

What I cannot abide are, as George Imire wonderfully said, BEEHAVERS. They
have bees and are not keepers. Then I also have to deal with their Varroa
repositories.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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