> Drone cell preference (DCP) is partly influenced by the proper- ties of the brood cells. 

> What does that mean?? Proper ties??? 

What it means is that I cut and pasted the text from a PDF which had hyphens at the end of lines. I tried to clean it up enough to make it readable but I guess I missed that one. I try not to use up all of my fifteen minute coffee break editing PDFs for Bee-l, sorry if it confused you. It should have read

> the properties of the brood cells. 

* * *

I think there is a fair amount of disagreement as to whether varroa end up in drone cells by attraction or by chance. A recent publication states:

> Varroa mites are attracted to its major prey, drone larvae, by methyl and ethyl esters of straight-chain fatty acids, in particular methyl palmitate. These esters were extracted from drone larvae with n-hexane and were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Their behavioral effect was evaluated with the use of a four-arm airflow olfactometer (Le Conte et al. 1989). ... With no known optical system (Bruce 1997), Varroa must rely on non-visual stimuli for orientation to specific larval and adult hosts. Within the environment of a honey bee colony, semiochemicals appear to be likely candidates for these cues. 

Collison, C. (2015) A CLOSER LOOK: VARROA MITE ORIENTATION
http://www.beeculture.com/a-closer-look-varroa-mite-orientation/

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