https://youtu.be/OeoT1boSfUQ

I posted this based on the title, but after viewing, there are a lot of generalizations used with no backing data, and he seems a bit rabid about "chemicals". The title is about breeding but the talk is more about TF Beekeeping.

But still food for thought, a different viewpoint can often bring to light beneficial aspects. Claiming no mites cannot be factual (maybe no mites on a drop board, every hive has mites), I also find it tough to accept zero loss. But bees will be bees and there are always outliers. I am convinced the mite problem will be solved genetically.

Breed your survivors. Let only your best colonies reproduce! Replace "production" Queens with local survivors. This is what we can do to improve our own stock as individuals. This in turn will benefit our neighbors and future local lines by thinning the dilution of our genetics.

I like what he says about using swarm cells (letting the bees choose which eggs) rather than grafting. Don't let human nature (impatience) force a lesser result. We have enough competition already, with drones bringing production genetics back into our selection.

Bringing drones into the picture we have to realize how little influence we have due to open mating. This combined with package/nuc season timing we have a large genetic influence to overcome. So preventing drones from your lesser hives and promoting drones from your best queens are in our best interests to lessen the dilution of production genetics.

I believe that the colonies that get sold off after pollination are propagating genetics in an unnatural manner and over the years has produced the mite problem. At no time in nature would a bee from New Hampshire have Floridian genetics and be living in California. I was told that 80% of the bee colony population in North America are in California in Feb!

The genetic implications of this are ridiculous! How do you reverse or offset that influence? When you look at the big picture the magnitude of the problem is horrendous, plus the amount of money involved precludes any measures to prevent this type of genetic bottlenecking.

Our best and only defense is local survivors.