foghornleghorn
Field Bee
FL, Are you trying to figure out if mite resistance traits are reliable enough to stop treating?
The first three years after I stopped treating were pretty rough. I lost 30% of my colonies one year. I split the remaining colonies and built back up. From 2010 to now averaged 10% winter losses. This past winter was 0, however, I combined several small colonies last fall that probably would not have made it. Note that I've been trying to raise extra queens which means I usually have some small colonies at the end of summer.
I have had repeated problems with hive beetles in late summer overwhelming small colonies. This makes queen production very dicey. I've stopped raising queens in the fall which means I have to put a lot more effort into producing queens for spring splits.
Yes. It would seem that even with the best bees it's not anywhere near reliable yet. Currently I am of the opinion that a major shift in.virus types must happen before losses are to stabilize.
The fact the heritability is so low would seem to back this up that there's more going on in the background...