Dean wrote:
>one clue might be (from you original post on this): "the African bees resurged due to natural selection of mite resistant bees."
Dave de Jong has been working on this for more than 20 years. Mike
Allsopp did his thesis on the subject. I recently wrote about it in
the ABJ, and I am fully cognizant of the implications of what I wrote
above. What do the bees of Brazil, South Africa, and Arizona have in
common, besides apparent mite resistance?
While honey bees CAN develop resistance to mite predation via natural
selection, it is not clear that European honey bees will develop it to
anywhere near the extent that African and Asian bees do.
If you think you are the only one who has thought of this, guess
again. Just look at who is putting money into the honey bee genome
project. And why. (And imagine what they will do with the
information.)
--
SEE:
INFESTATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE MITE
Varroa destructor IN COLONIES OF AFRICANIZED BEES
MORETTO, G. and LEONIDAS, J. de M.
Distributed February 28, 2003
The mite Varroa destructor has been
infesting Africanized bees in Brazil for almost
30 years. Soon after its discovery, although there
were no reports of bee colony deaths, the levels
of infestations detected were a source of concern
for Brazilian apiculture. However, as the pest
started to disperse through the country, the
infestation level of varroa on Africanized bees
was found to be low, causing no apparent harm
to apiculture and requiring no use of chemical
products to combat the pest.
The high percentage of mites on worker
brood of Africanized bees detected in the present
study may also be associated with the grooming
behavior of these bees, which causes the varroa
to look for brood as a defence against worker
attack, instead of leaving the adult bees, and to
invade the brood to perform its reproductive cycle.
This may be one of the causes of the small number
of descendants produced by Varroa destructor on
Africanized bees.
References include
DE JONG, D., 1984, Current knowledge and open question
concerning reproduction in honey bee mite Varroa
jacobsoni. Advances in Invertebrate Reproduction, 3: 347-352.
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