>
> >That's a bit like saying, anybody could be president.


No, it isn''t.  Not in any way.

>The survival of no species is assured.

Pete, there is plenty of evidence that bees are not going to go extinct due
to varroa.  To the best of my knowledge, the only place that this has
happened was to a tiny population on Santa Cruz Island.  Everywhere else,
unmanaged populations have managed to to survive.

>Further, once a species comes under the purview of humankind, evolutionary
pressures are subjugated, or at least diffused.

Actually, evolutionary pressures are generally increased, due to selective
breeding.  This then leads to genetic bottlenecking, which is likely one of
our problems.

I can't think of any other livestock requires continual suppression of a
parasite that would otherwise lead to the death of that animal in a
relatively short time.

I'm just not buying all the weak arguments of the naysayers.  All evidence
shows that the honey bee has the capacity, if we don't hold it back, to
evolve resistance to varroa by some combination of heritable traits.

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

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