> This is an interesting example Peter, it is almost exactly why I don't think the "hypertraits" of HYG and VSH are the right way to go with breeding for disease resistance.

HYG has its limitations, as we discover when hygienic bees are strongly challenged by AFB and other brood diseases, but I cannot agree that HYG is not one part, and significant part, of an eventual solution.  

HYG and VSH are just one of the mechanisms that can contribute to solutions.  Other traits are under investigation, but some traits are easier to isolate than others. 

As Harbo told us at the start, they listed the traits and ranked heritability and our ability to detect and work with them and went with the most promising first.   As new techniques to recognise more subtle traits quickly and cheaply are developed, we will see less dependence on this one "brute force" trait.  Beaverlodge is working currently on three traits.

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