It has frequently been suggested that varroa reproduce preferentially in drone brood in Apis cerana, and that this has something to do with cell size or development time. The following excerpt seems to indicate that these are NOT the reasons at all. Evidently varroa are just as likely to enter worker as drone cells, but a much more diligent behavior on the part of the housecleaners toward worker brood accounts for why varroa are seldom found there.


> Highly selective hygienic behavior was observed in A cerana bees towards dead sealed drone and worker brood. In the removal response to freeze-killed worker brood, A cerana workers uncapped 98.3% of the cells and removed 81.5% of the sealed dead worker brood within 24 h (table IV). After 41 h all dead worker brood had been removed. Unlike the fast uncapping and removal response towards dead sealed worker brood the A cerana workers took 5 days to remove 25% of the freeze- killed sealed drone brood, and after 13 days only 34.7% of the dead sealed drone brood had been removed.

> DeJong (1988) reported on V jacobsoni reproducing in sealed worker A cerana brood cells but did not find adult offspring of the mites in worker cells; this is probably related to the described removal response. We suppose that under natural conditions successful reproduction of V jacobsoni on A cerana worker brood is an exceptional case which does not contribute to the population dynamics of the mite population. Although the survival of A cerana colonies does not seem to be affected by mite parasitism, the drone brood might suffer from some damage or reduced vitality.

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