Hello Dave and All,
I hope Dave will accept the following in the friendly manor which is
intended in response to his post.

I find it funny that you English are so attached to your black bee that
Brother Adam found (in his opinion) to not be even close to being the ideal
bee.

I do wish I had saved at least one hive of those bees to always remind me
why I eliminated those from the gene pool .

Dave said:
Something close to my heart is genetic and allelic diversity... In UK we
have a natural background of bees with a history of around 10,000 years in
our geographic location.
This broad based gene pool has been modified somewhat over the last 180
years or more, by imports and selective breeding.

*Somewhat* should be changed to *largely modified* after tracheal mites
*almost* wiped out the original black bee in the early 1900's and heavy
importation began.

Dave said:
This paucity of alleles is further reduced by modern breeding projects that
are 'quick and dirty' with little or no attention to 'quality control'.

If you are refering to work done at the Baton Rouge Bee lab then you simply
do not understand the project. The research at Baton Rouge is to get
chemicals out of the bee hive. The Baton Rouge lab accomplished in six years
what most researchers (Dr. Shiminuki) predicted would take twenty years.
None of us can predict the long term effect of ANY chemical used in our
hives.

Dave said:
We in UK and mainland Europe are attempting to retain the biodiversity
levels that we have fallen to and even increase or re-establish them if
possible, but bringing in US stock would dilute and/or displace some of our
natural diversity.

Will your English bee survive varroa without help? Shouldn't you be leaving
some untreated and breeding from varroa tolerant bees? Would not the SMR
trait be a help to your English black bee?

I love to kid Dave (and others) about their beloved  English bee but Dave
knows I respect Dave and all my English friends.

We have the same type of discussion over pro's and con's  in the U.S.
between Carniolan & Italian beekeepers and Ford and Chevy owners.

Bob

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