Bill Truesdell wrote:
>Also, the tail is being pinned on "commercial" beekeeping, but the
>problem is across the board and affects all beekeeping where Varroa is a
>new introduction.

Well, Oldroyd points to commercial queen breeding ("Some researchers are
wondering if commercial honey bee stocks are based on too narrow a genetic
base"). But, where else do most of the bees come from? Tens of thousands of
queens are raised and sold in this country and they are distributed to every
nook and cranny. Where do you think the bees of Arnot Forest came from? 

In my travels I do find pockets of bees that seem to be sufficiently
isolated from commercial beekeeping that there is the potential that they
may be some sort of regional type. But whenever I ask the beekeeper where
he/she where the bees came from, there is almost always a commercial queen
breeder at the source. 

Insofar as whether diversity means different races or just different lines
of bees, I don't know. What has been studied so far is colonies formed from
a single drone and queen pairing, and ones from queens mated to multiple
"unrelated" drones. I don't think anybody has looked into whether it matters
how unrelated they are. If anyone wants to give me $120,000 I will do a
three year study on it. 

Pete

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************