> I talked him into letting me have his queen. I am on the fourth generation > of this line. From the start this queen and her first generation queens > hygienically tested superior to all my other lines. All my lines pretty > close, now. I am interested in seeing how the three SMR queens from Glenn > will compare. > > Call it luck-call it what you like. I just know it is working. Hi Dan - I would call it nature doing what nature does best. If feral bees are such a prized item for their natural ability to survive varroa, then what does this say about our current efforts to breed better queens? I think we end up propping up an artificial system that quickly falls apart when one stops buying the queens. Why do we always look to some other place or some other breeder for "better" queens? Is there something wrong with the ones our own bees raise? I think not. In fact, I'd rather have bees that have figured out for themselves what is best for my local area than some outside queen being shipped from miles away. Give me the local swarm, that's the kind of bee I want. I also find it interesting that many are jumping right in line for their SMR queens without 'critical analysis', which has been attributed to those interested in employing the 4.9 cell size, even when so much is unknown about how and if this trait will work in the long run in real life situations. How will secondary infections be tolerated? Who knows. Lots of speculation but until many give it a try, we won't know. Too bad we can't have more of these beekeepers willing to try other methods that are working on a much larger scale. Regards, Barry