I love Inner Cover in Bee Culture. Almost like with poems Kim Flottum is firing up our minds with right on the spot insights and humor. Why is it so much money in funding for finding in detail why our bees are dying? We all know that what we need in first place to save the bees are resistant bees! Resistant against Varroa mites. That’s some of the things Kim is writing about in the September issue.
In the ‘same’ issue, but another journal, ABJ, Larry Connor is writing about resistant bees and efforts getting them. Larry is en extensive writer with a lot of instructive books an numerous articles in both Bee Culture and ABJ. Visit is website: www.wicwas.com
In Europe many scientists say it’s so difficult breeding resistant bees only institutions can do it. But where’s the efforts and the results. Very few. The funding doesn’t seem to go there in first place. But there are some efforts, like that of John Kefuss (without funding). But too few varroa fighting queens in too few countries are reaching the beekeepers.
In USA you have more initiatives both from scientists and beekeepers, which have resulted in good stock. Connor is mentioning the VSH-group on www.vshbreeders.org and the work with the Russian bees: www.russianbreeders.org At the end of his article Larry Connor write:
Many survivor programs are nothing more than the result of a careful beekeeper who has used no chemicals for varroa treatment and has only used locally adapted survivor stocks in new colonies and to replace queens.
B Weaver is such an example: www.beeweaver.com And there are more…
Both Flottum and Connor points out that we beekeepers are also responsible for the situation. We have to be concerned in getting resistant bees and looking for queen suppliers producing such queens. Let’s fill the air with drones from resistant queens.