Hoping to help steer the discussion away from whether or not the
list should be split, I would like to pose a question.  As a beekeeper
and an academic--an historian with an interest in history of science and
history of biology--I was wondering the other day where the present
problem we experience in the USA with mites came from.  It seems to me
that it must be a problem related evolution and ecology; most of the
other bee diseases, such as the foulbroods, seem to have been such.  I
also know that one of the primary foci for the eventual solution of the
problem is evolutionary in principle--the development of more resistant
bees.  But I was away from beekeeping during the years that the problems with
the mites emerged, and so only came back into it knowing that they were
serious problems, but not really aware of where they had come from.  Has
anyone written on this?  Can anyone recommend a good article or two?  Thanks.
 
James Cassidy
Saint Anselm College
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