Really?
Let's have a wee think about this please. He was a junior monk in a relatively isolated part of the world in the 1920s. Just how much of the world information do you think he was able to access? I doubt they had a radio, possibly a weekly newspaper and word of mouth.
I did state that I was paraphrasing the claims of "other writers words", I also said that a major source of info I used was from Journals (safe to say he had access to the same, if not at the time, then later).
Most importantly, he had first hand observational experience.... more than we have, and more than most writers.
A most important part of this is his Breeding Records which show that the British Strain of Amm did not survive in subsequent generations, hence the reason Br. Adam had to resort to going to France (northern I think), then Provence, Switzerland... for his Amm's (side note: Amm's were included in his breeding program every year from 1919 to 1948, he valued and spoke highly of many of their characteristics).
Contrary to some claims, he lamented the demise of the British strain of Amm (he maintained that it was better than the continental imports), hence the reason why he continued his search to 1943 for the Old British Black Bee, and then later to Ireland - if he had access to modern technology he wouldn't have gone to such efforts though.
Poly Hive, you need to remember, not all bees get infected with Acarine when exposed to it, Greeks/Macedonians don't have them, it's because of their smaller tracheas, Amm's are big bees = big tracheas, the original British strain of Amm's here must have had a slightly larger set of tracheas to make them so susceptible.
