I bought three resistant queens from Glenn Apiaries. My sister neglected one given to her, which died; The next I probably killed by chilling it with its workers in its shipment cage, since I didn't have a hive for it to go into yet - I hooked up an aquarium with heater in the hive box the second night, but too late.
The third got about 3 lbs of workers - I gave it to freinds with children that kept them too busy to keep up with the hive. It died too.
As you might suspect, I've done more reading than bee-keeping.
I have an english translation of a german person's records of selecting for resistance among his hives, somewhere around here, unless I gave that to my freinds as well.
I hope soon to give resistant queens a fair shake. Anyone else have luck with Glenn queens?
I.I. seems promising in part, yet the test of flight would seem to sort out better drones. One isolated bee yard would seem very helpful - one could move hives with good resistance, or other good features there
as drone sources, then hatch, release and recover queens from there. (But with that much control, would resistance be superfluous?)
Do you all plan to use Spivak's liquid nitrogen test method, to kill larvae on a brood frame within a measured disc, and see how many are removed within a certain time period? I believe this was used to select parents of the Minnisota hygenic strain, and corelated with foul and chalk brood and trachea mite resistance. It seemed workable, with access to liquid nitrogen (or dry ice as a second choice - liquid nitrogen could be poured out of a common thermos, easing handling.) I think universities have liquid nitrogen; I know they can have dry ice.
Spivak mentioned just killing all larvae within a circle (of a forgotten diameter) with a pin, etc., as a technically simpler, but slower method.
Brian Cady
[This message has been edited by briancady413 (edited December 08, 2003).]