> If you control varroa then why spend the money and effort [on
mite-resistant stock] (try and keep a 1000 commercial hives moved many times
and set in areas with other beekeepers hives pure) in a *commercial*
setting.

Bob's point should be well taken: for a large commercial beekeeper, if a
stock that requires a few inexpensive treatments with Taktic each year
produces a few pounds more honey than one that is more naturally mite
resistant, it makes more financial sense to use the more productive stock.

However, I do run close to 1000 hives, moved many times, and set near other
commercial beekeepers, and the answer to Bob's question is economics.  I
find that breeding for varroa resistance makes my beekeeping more
profitable, due to having healthier bees all year long, rather than having
varroa levels growing at a high rate between treatments.  It costs me very
little more in my queen selection process to add a simple mite wash in order
to select each spring for queens heading productive colonies with the lowest
mite levels.  Note that I select for colony strength and production first,
them low mite levels second!

>Really? I think selling instrumentally inseminated queens has certainly
> enriched his life ( or chould I say lively hood)
>

Tom and Suki Glenn have been providing as service to the beekeeping
community by maintaining and providing II queens of several stocks to queen
producers.  They are not getting rich in doing so, and no commercial
producer that I know of is complaining about their reasonable cost.

I speak with a number of large commercial queen producers.  All that I know
make efforts to select for bees that handle varroa better, and most purchase
stock from the Glenns.  Today's bees are, across the board, more mite
resistant than the stocks that we had when varroa first arrived.  If they
were not, I doubt that Bob would currently have the cavalier attitude that
he is expressing.
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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