Thanks for that Randy.  The Tibor Szabo references are presumably relevant to Varroa transmission only if the phoretic mite moved from a drone to a queen in flight. I can find no reference to this in the lit I've surveyed thus far. Therefore, I can't see how matings at distance from a hive are a vector for Varroa transmission.  Virus transmission via mating, yes.  Amiri, et al. 2016 show that "deformed wing virus infected drones are competitive to mate and able to transmit the virus along with semen, which occasionally leads to queen infections.  Virus transmission to queens during mating may be common and can contribute noticeably to queen failure." Sci Rep. 2016; 6: 33065. 

Seeley says this about drone flight distances away from parent colonies - "It is clear that queens and drones can visit very distant drone congregation areas….it was found that drones will fly 7 or more kilometres to reach a congregation area, flying up and over 1000-meter high mountains if necessary to reach a mating site….queens frequently mate with genetically marked drones from hives 12 or more kilometres away, indicates that queens can also travel several kilometres from their nests before mating….Although these large distances probably represent the maximum flight ranges of reproductives, not their typical flight distances, various studies also indicate that queens and drones rarely mate at the congregation areas nearest their nests, with queens mating on average 2 to 3 kilometres from their nests" (Seeley, 1985:68).

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