I think more or less tolerant bees exist. I have seen and worked with them. The thing is that a) the trait cannot be disconnected from the environment the selective pressure was/is playing in. Mechanisms will differ according to location and population. A bee that responds to dearths by removing all its brood (layed in small patches anyway) gives Varroa a really hard time, 2 months of bad weather, a few rounds of brrod removal and it is decimated. In a different climate/habitat this bee stays brooding and the effect is lost. It was a side effect of habitat. b) Bees that have good traits tend not to be the bees beekeepers want, small colonies of bees that brood very conservatively or that expand like crazy into swarms.
Lennard
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