Hi Dee and Everyone,

Dee asked regarding varroa tolerance/resistance programs that use
treatments to maintain the stock while selecting the colonies with the
lowest varroa population increase for further breeding:

"One question though! Does adding the apistan to the
methodology mean the bees will always have to be doped with
it or something else stronger down the road?"

No.  It allows one to keep enough colonies alive to continue selection
until the treatment is no longer needed.  In other words it allows one
to breed for resistance and get there without loosing most of the
colonies along the way.  Every year all the colonies are requeened with
the queens reared from the most resistant colonies and the selection
begans again on the next generation.  It might take longer to get to
resistant stock but it will work and you have enough colonies to
continue the selection along the way.  It appears from their article
that Szabo and Szabo are selecting from 30 - 40 colonies per year and
their results are looking pretty impressive after 5 years of selection.

FWIW

blane



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Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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