> >The mites already prefer drone comb because the cells are bigger and the develop time is longer.

I don't think this is true.

> Peter Teal, Adrian Duehl and Mark Carroll appear to to have determined that
the varroa's selection of larvae has little preference on the size of the
cell, and instead as to do with pheromones produced by the brood themselves

You are conflating what they prefer and how they locate it. Obviously, they are better off in larger cells which are sealed off from the bees for longer time. Their development is intimately linked to the development of honey bee larvae and pupae. 

For many years researchers speculated on _how_ varroa located these cells, whether by measuring the perimeter or whatever. They realized that varroa probably can't measure cell perimeters, but they can detect brood odors. 

If their ability to discriminate drone brood odor led them to drone cells -- where they have larger cells and a longer safe period, that would constitute a selective advantage over other varroa that simply crawled into any cell. 

Varroa that wandered into worker brood in Apis cerana seldom reproduced whereas in drone cells they could produce multiple offspring. Over thousands or millions of years, this relationship was fixed into the genetically based behavior of varroa mites.

While it's true that varroa have succeeded in colonizing Apis mellifera, that doesn't mean that in the past 100 years or so, their behavior has changed one bit. Presumably they are following instincts that served them well in Apis cerana, where they seldom killed the host -- by parasitizing mainly drone brood. 

In Apis mellifera they can reproduce successfully in worker brood. The cell size and development time is similar to the cell size and development time of Apis cerana drones. But still, the prime attraction is probably the odor of drone brood because over the long time period, they were most successful (in Apis cerana) when they entered drone cells for the purposes of reproduction. 

While we can surmise as to why they do it, for sure they have no idea why they do it.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html