I often hear the claim that it will require novel mutations for the bee to
evolve resistance to varroa.  But I see zero supporting evidence for those
claims.  There are already plenty of traits encoded in the existing bee
genome adequate for exhibiting mite resistance.  The breeders at the Baton
Rouge lab--Harbo, Harris, Danka, Villa--have made that clear.

It isn't that we need to wait for bees to mutate (although some mutations
could of course be of benefit).  All we need to do is to preferentially
select as breeders those queens that already carry genes coding for traits
for resistance, or that epigenetically upregulate those traits.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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