Hi Joe

> ONLY since the quest for a varroa resistant mite (IMO, after 1995) have I 
> seen such a Hodgepodge of ‘bee flavors‘.  Prior to this, the ‘so called 
> Italian’ strains dominated my area since the later 1800‘s so I 
> understand.  Any swarm caught would have accompanying traits that were 
> very predictable and highly manageable.

What you describe is stability that is brought about by large closed 
populations. However even though the results were reasonably predictable 
you would have still applied further selection.

> NOW, it’s a risky adventure to 
> collect swarms without heavy assessing and heavy culling. 

The price you pay for 'the grass is greener' and 'magic bullets', the 
only way out of that is educating beekeepers and we all know how hard 
that is as all beekeepers are 'experts'.

> The complaint I hear most often in my area nowadays is NOT concerning
> varroa problems, but instead about hot colonies. 

All too often we see, honey production or a feature like perceived 
varroa tolerance, being selected for too early in the breeding process, 
in a previous post I mentioned the tortoise and the hare, but by being 
to quick in our selection we are really throwing out babies in bath water.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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