Jean-Marie wrote:
 
>3/ In Europe we have really the problem of the dead of the wild-feral
>   honeybees.  Maybe a resistant line shall appear, but all the
>   beekeepers treatments against the mites, diminish the speed of
>   appearance of this resistant line (we don't see which is resistant
>   and which is not).
 
   When all beekeepers treat infested colonies with one miticide or
another, the net result will most likely be better strains of mites, a
phenomenon pointed out very lucidly in chapter 1 of Paul DeBach's book,
BIOLOGICAL CONTROL BY NATURAL ENEMIES (1974, Cambridge University Press).
 
   Feral honey bee colonies, by contrast, will not be treated with
miticides and almost all will perish.  The real hope for the future of
beekeeping is for all of us to locate and monitor the health of feral
colonies, particularly those not likely to be recently emitted from
commercial colonies.  Eventually those colonies can provide the breeding
stock necessary for development of resistant strains.
 
                                                        Adrian
 
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