I hesitate to sound repetitive, but I'll add my two bits' worth. I also went down the survivor bee path, and as did Allen and Bob, found that they couldn't support me. So I changed my breeding strategy a few years ago--prioritizing basic health and productivity (mainly by selecting good honey producers, and very strong colonies with great brood patterns in almonds) and then from that limited pool, testing them individually for mite levels--generally in mid August, and then after almonds. Although all my colonies get a winter oxalic dribble, the mite levels in March vary greatly from colony to colony. I'm heartened this year to see levels down from those of last March. Our selection criterion this week (from busting colonies, after over two months of strong broodrearing, and plenty of drone brood already emerged, was to only accept colonies that had fewer than 1 mite per 100 bees in an alcohol wash of 300 bees from the broodnest (a level half cup of live bees). We found a few productive breeders that showed zero mites, even in two washes. After grafting from our selected mothers, I plan to place them in a survival yard to see how they actually do without treatment for the rest of the season (I reserve the right to treat if I feel that it is necessary, but will remove any treated colonies from the pool). I'm not sure how this selection process will pan out, but after a few years now, it appears that I am making progress (I have been bringing in VSH and other stock as drone mothers). My point is, that I am in agreement with Allen's comment "I fully expect that in the next decade, we will have commercially useful bees which are far less chemically dependent." Randy Oliver *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Access BEE-L directly at: http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L