Bill T.  wrote
<<<< It can care less if it kills off all its hosts in the new species as it
still has a home<<<
[I'm still thinking DWV as the "bug."]
I know you guys don't think the bug "cares" whether it kills its' host. I
wish you could stop talking as if it did. People may read this list! On this
point: many bugs come from another species. West Nile Virus  and Lymes
Disease come immediately to mind. Plague is vectored by fleas. How does that
change the dynamic? The bee may be holding DWV for another species. [Before
varroa]

>>>> We are assuming that the bug changes and that is the reason for a
symbiotic
relationship.<<<<
     Nothing "changes." The variation that allows for adaptation was always
there. It merely comes front and center. Ditto for the host. The swarming
tendency of AHB may protect them from mites. This could be amplified by
nature while those colonies that stay put. and build up the large killing
populations of mites, drop out.

>>>>The bug may have been in a symbiotic relationship before Varroa, but not
after, and that is mostly because of the host, not the bug.<<<<<
     Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't DWV exist happily in the adult Bee?
Ergo they have achieved symbiosis. Varroa vectors it down to the larva/pupa
where it kills. Eventually the kids may take after the parents. 

>>>The host is selected for by the bug, not the other way around.<<<<<<
    I know you don't think bugs "select" anything. Consider that the host,
by walking around with a particular vulnerability, chooses its' disease. The
bugs are everywhere waiting for something to stick to. They are not
discouraged when %99.99999 die.

>>>>>In the case of bees, maybe it is hygienic behavior, or shortening the
emergence of brood. That is what breeding is all about, getting the correct
bee, not the correct bug.<<<<<
     Agreed. That is what nature does [or would do if we left her alone].
The trouble is, we have narrowed the gene pool almost systematically
eliminating the variation that could save us. If, as I mentioned, swarming
is a defense mechanism that defeats varroa [new comb, new clutch of brood,
small population] it's never going to be popular with US beekeepers as it
defeats current management. By breeding for docile, productive bees we may
have gone in the wrong direction. 


Dick Marron

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