BN,
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who finds it frustrating when a forum member claims to have made a significant break through in beekeeping but then cant be bothered / refuses to elaborate on this. You have obviously thought about the rational for the system you work with, together with the implications of your action in relation to current scientific understanding, although personally I have concerns on some of its validity (especially on vector and virus relationship). Frankly, without more than your word, a lot of this forum will think of you as a modern day charlatan. That's up to you
How would you like me to elaborate? I could take photos of nice busy hives, but that wouldn't convince you if you mistrust me.
What I done is begin to explain _why_ it works. _If_ you can follow the rationale you can see that the singular statement I made - that treating inhibits the rise of resistance, _must_ follow the principle claims of breeding and evolution.
Certainly it isn't relevant for most beekeepers. Hobbyists don't have enough hives and commercial beekeeper want to maximise their income. But that doesn't make it untrue. But I'm not the only person doing this, and I'm in good (scientific) company. See for example the Journal of Apicultural Research:
"A survival field test was initiated in 1999 to observe the effects of no treatment against
Varroa destructor on European honey bee colony survival. After losses of over two-thirds of the 268 original colonies, new colonies were made from the survivors. In 2002, genetic material from these survivors was bred into an independent group of 60 colonies. In 2013, 519 non-treated colonies from both groups were being used for commercial beekeeping, and mite populations were very low. This indicates that under commercial beekeeping conditions, simple methods can be used to select for reduced mite populations."
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2016.1160709
Nature Communications
" We show that while the honey bee population has been hard hit by the introduction of parasitic mites, it most likely did not go extinct. Rather, the bees have rapidly evolved to tolerate the mites’ presence, and now exist at the same colony densities today, as they did in the past. This response was most likely polygenic, but possibly involves some of the same pathways previously identified in
Varroa resistance, namely dopaminergic control of aversive memory. These findings suggest that wild populations of honey bees have an inherent capacity to mount a rapid evolutionary response to novel parasites. "
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8991
Randy Oliver:
"[...] I strongly support those willing to actually practice [sic]
selective breeding for treatment-free (or minimal treatment) locally-adapted
stocks of bees. But let me be frank (try to stop me); if you start your hive
with commercial stock, then by all means care for them as domesticated
animals! If you want to go treatment free then start with survivor stock
bred to be naturally resistant to mites and viruses, such as VSH, Russian,
or locally-adapted ferals. Do not kid yourself into thinking that allowing
innocent domesticated bees to die a slow and ugly death is the same thing as
breeding for survivor stock -- 'breeding' instead means the propagation of
bees that don't die -- the key word bring propagation. And this is a
frustration for many well-intentioned beginners -- no one in their area is
propagating survivor stock for sale. That is why wrote this article.
To me, it is a crime against nature not to breed daughters from that
fantastic survivor colony. But most beekeepers think that it is beyond their
scope of ability to raise queens. Nonsense! Let me show you how to raise
about 10 queens at a time for pennies apiece. This is not the way we do it
commercially, but this method can be easily practiced by most anyone."
American Bee Journal, March 2014, 273-277
Page 273
