Bob writes:
Perhaps commercial beekeepers should also weigh the *cost* before using the 
bond method. I personally will wait and buy the varroa tolerant queens but 
the "Bond' method has been recommended for all beekeepers. Over and over .

Not by me. I don't let my bees die deliberately. I let somebody else do that, and buy their stock. That's the whole idea, isn't it? Get good stock any way you can? I don't think letting bees die off and breeding from the survivors works that well, anyway. A positive selection program, like Marla Spivak has run for decades, is the way to go. By simply breeding survivors you have no idea what you are selecting for, it's all guesswork. By selecting for hygienic behavior, you are selecting for a trait that is positive and will have multiple benefits. 

As a matter of fact, it was noted that the survivor bees are lacking in a number of useful qualities. The honey production is about half of what you'd get with regular bees. Also, most of the survivor stock I have seen is bad tempered, or outright hostile.  A few hives like that are OK but imagine a truckload of hothead bees, if you think you got trouble! Anyway, the ultimate survivors are the African Bees and according to my friend Ernesto Guzman-Novoa, "You don't want those bees."

Another friend of mine, with a background in genetics, pointed out an interesting fact. He noted that of bees tested for IAPV, 30% had viral DNA code in their genome. This could mean that survivor bees may be ones that have been genetically modified by the IAP virus. In other words, breeding from survivors is way of propagating some kind of freak bee strain that has virus genes. This may or may not be a ticking time bomb. You heard it here first (that is, unless you have been following the discussion on BeeSource).

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