John asks:
Bob, i would appreciate knowing where you got the info that upholds the
above statement.

Directly from John Harbo.

I believe if you go to the Baton Rouge Bee lab web site then click on the
part which explains about SMR you will see the steps Dr. Harbo went through
to come up with the SMR trait.

Short version:

Back when varroa first hit and we lost over half the commercial hives to
varroa and the USDA-ARS said we lost 95% of the feral colonies. Dr. Harbo
asked for beekeepers to send queens which had survived to Baton Rouge. The
lab received many queens. The lab started keeping track of varroa load and
then raising queens from those with the lowest varroa load.
The project meant with a small amount of success but Daughters often times
had no varroa tolerance at all.
So Dr. Harbo started looking deeper (and still is) and discovered a better
way to find the varroa tolerant bee. SMR & PMB. Both explained at the
website .
In short the bee lab does not select its breeder queens solely on a low
varroa count as the method (although an indicater of varroa tolerance) was
not successful when the ONLY method used to select a breeder queen.

John said:
 I am breeding as best i can for varroa resistance and have
made definite progress.I do use queens that have low mite counts so the
above statement is of special importance to me.

Why re invent the wheel? What you are trying to do was the best we had 18
years ago . Now even a varroa tolerant hybrid used as a breeder queen would
add useful genetics and speed your search. One of the breeder queens I
suggested would put your search in fast forward.

I will say it is possible to inbreed the varroa tolerance gene in a small
group of bees breeding from survivors. I have done the exact thing  myself!
I know the method  works. But I will fast forward to the end. You will end
up with a bee with a spotty brood pattern and usually several bad traits but
will survive varroa. Not usually without slight PMS. Not the bee I would
like to keep around but if crossed with the right cross you might get the
bee you are looking for.

Only my opinion and not the opinion of all those searching for the varroa
tolerant bee but if your final bee you have come up with has PMS symptoms
however slight I would go back to the drawing board. Others do not see
slight PMS as a serious issue. I do.

Also when you get to the breed queen stage in your search John take the
future breeder queen and apply varroa pressure. The real test of a line. I
would love to publish results of popular US queen producers lines survival
when varroa pressure was added but will not. Shocking!

When you move bees into California in areas of hives crashing from varroa
and being robbed out  you need a bee which can handle extra varroa pressure.
Commercial beekeeping adds stress to hives. Hives under stress do not handle
mites & disease well.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

"Trying to be Sonny Optimist but needing to get the truth out"

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