Dave Cushman writes:
>Whatever the process was...Varroa is "out of the bag" now and we humans do
>not have the millions of years to spare for a new balance to be struck.


There have been a lot of comments that the whole varroa problem is
man created. This is obviously quite true, but one must remember that
beekeeping, too, is man created. Up until 150 years ago, honeybees
were still essentially wild creatures. Beekeepers gathered them into
apiaries, which probably produced some unnatural overcrowding, which
encourages disease.

But the onset of beekeeping changed everything. The life of bees in
hives is not natural and for better or worse, we are responsible for
their well being. We set them up for the varroa invasion. Would this
have happened without the human activity called beekeeping? I doubt
it. Parasites tend to be host specific. But the bee hive proved to be
just too good an opportunity for varroa to pass up!

Whether evolution is a fact or a theory has become moot with the
arrival of genetic engineering. It *is possible* for species to be
changed into other species, as proven by the scientists currently at
work. I will not comment on whether this is a good thing or not, but
simply state that if humans can alter species by altering the genes,
then the potential was there to begin with, and nature certainly
*could* have used it.

I wonder how many would be in favor of genetically altering the honey
bee to combat the varroa? Obviously, Apis cerana  has some form of
defense that it uses against the varroa. Perhaps this could be
transferred to Apis mellifera? Personally, the whole thing makes me
think of "The Island of Dr. Moreau." But, on the other hand, the most
dangerous thing in life is the inability to change when change is
needed.







pb