Peter’s quote from the Magnum (I believe) article:

"More specifically, colonies with high Varroa infestation had a significantly enhanced acceptance of drifters, although they did not send out more drifting workers.”

Peter’s response:

"This seems to imply that the varroa infested bees are drifting more than healthy bees.”

I’m not sure I would draw that conclusion.  All that is necessary to support the observation is that some colonies are (significantly) more accepting of drifters in contrast to other colonies that are not so accepting.

(On the other hand those who make up nuc yards have had the chance to see how bees will drift away from those nucs which fail to get a mated queen into the ones that end up queen right, and by a similar mechanism it’s possible that infested bees may be motivated to abandon a weakened colony and be more attracted to a healthy one).

I find it significant that the authors were able to quantify this trait of ‘acceptance of drifters’.  The implications for colony resistance to varroa are obvious.

Likewise the lower propensity seen in some strains to engage in robbing, if differences between strains do indeed exist, could be a mitigating factor when it comes offsetting the likelihood of a late season influx of mites into the hive.  How does one quantify propensity for robbing?

Could behaviors such as these be playing an important role in surviving feral populations and with bees managed successfully off treatments?

Are these traits that breeders could select for?

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