"Are the TF areas mentioned not inhabited by AHB? If so isn’t the varroa issue reduced?"

In some cases those bees are without doubt partly Africanized.  All the bees in South America are also Africanized I think.  Yet those in South America need aggressive mite control to keep mites at bay.  Are Africanized bees better at dealing with mites once you select the swarming and aggression characters out of them?   If it was just Africanization why do those bees fail to mites when you bring them north?

I sure wish mite resistance was so simple Africanized bees were bullet proof.  In that case it would be fairly easy to move the resistance into our domestics and leave the bad characters behind.  But I think the evidence says Africanized bees that survive mites do it for many of the same reasons the Arnot forest ferals survive.  Or am I wrong on that?

Dick

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