Hello Beepeople. Excuse me if this message was alredy send fri 1.mar., but my system has been out of order. The current discussion about mite resistant bees made me wonder what happened to some apparently good breeding material: In an article from 1992 in the journal "Apidologie" F. Ruttner et al. describes a strain of Apis mellifera carnica with active defence against varroa. The article is referred by E. Southwick in the American Bee Journal sometime in 1992 (as far as I remember) he included a picture from the original article as well. The bees of this strain apparently mutilate the mites e.g. "bites" off the legs of the mites. According to the article this strains of bees had good owerwintering capability WITHOUT treatment. The bees were selected by an Austrian beekeeper named Alois Wallner. Does anyone out there know what happened to this strain of bees? Is it possible to by breeding material (queens or semen) from this strain? References: Apidologie (1992) 23, 173-187 Active defense against Varroa mites in a Carnolian strain of honeybee (Apis mellifera carnica Pollmann). Thank you Regards Morten Petersen Denmark, Scandinavia E-Mail [log in to unmask]