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The value of this procedure, coupled with scientific 

 management in breeding bees before, and not after, the 

 honey flow, has been proved such an effective check to 

 the disease during the productive season, that Acarine 

 disease has in the circumstances proved relatively 

 unimportant as a check in honey-getting. It should 

 never be forgotten that : A good queen can produce bees 

 faster than this disease can destroy them. 



Breeding Vigorous Long-lived Bees — Confusion Regarding 

 Imtminity. 



But for complete success in reducing the causal 

 parasite to relative impotence, beekeepers and breeders 

 must go further and raise vigorous strains, long lived if 

 possible, adapted to the British climate and conditions. 

 It is quite true that many " experts " prefer to clamour 

 for a " cure," or to talk of deliverance by immune 

 strains or varieties of bees which they think will by 

 some happy chance arise without efforts on their part. 

 In this connection, I know nothing regarding the 

 existence of any bees having any claim whatever to the 

 quality of " immunity " from Acarine disease. No 

 scientific evidence of their existence has ever been forth- 

 coming. In most cases beekeepers themselves are 

 merely displaying confusion of thought in their references 

 to this subject. It may do some good and save mis- 

 directed confidence of beekeepers before accepting 

 statements as to the existence of immune bees if with 

 regard to such claims they will seek answers to the 

 following questions : 



Where claims are made that particular breeds are 

 Acarine-immune, 



(a) Does the term mean — 



that the spiracles on the thorax of the bees for 

 whom the claim is made are so small that the 

 parasite mite— the cause of Acarine disease — 

 is unable to gain an entrance to the body ? Or, 



(h) that although the mites are able to enter the 

 bees' tracheae the bees' constitution is such 

 that the mites cannot breed there and con- 

 sequently perish ? Or, 



