>Is it possible that dealing with mites is a learned trait rather than genetic ?
It seems much more likely that less-virulent mites are the proximate cause of much of what is labeled "mite resistance" in isolated areas, like the (Cornell) Arnot Forest in NY.
The simple test is to move the hives to somewhere else, and see if the same varroa "resistance" persists.
> I'm not sure our brains can really step out of seeing the world deterministically.
Briefly wandering off from "bees" to "humans", this is because determinism is an unstoppable machine.
Studies have shown significant levels of brain activity 300ms BEFORE someone "choses".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6640273
Other studies have shown that several seconds before we "chose", our brain as already "decided".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21486293
To make matters worse, our perception of reality lags actual reality by roughly 50 to 500ms.
When you add it all up, "free will" is slowly being reduced by neuroscience to a quaint fairytale we tell our kids to make them feel better about life.
Free will is a collection of excuses we make to justify and rationalize what our brains unconsciously chose before we could stop them.
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