> Nothing new again........just differences in latitude for places you referring to that changes cell size around the world....and Dr Ruttner looked at all of this. But still not enough reproduction to be problematic that bees cannot handle.

I certainly didn't imply that a paper from 1988 was new. We were discussing why varroa preferentially infests drone brood, an adaptation carried over from its relationship with Apis cerana. 

Rather than being related to cell size or latitude (?) the difference appears to be connected with the rapidity of removal of dead workers vs drones

> A cerana workers showed a differential hygienic behavior towards freeze killed sealed brood, consisting of fast removal of dead worker and slow removal of dead drone brood. 

> The artificially infested worker cells were detected to a high degree by the A cerana workers, uncapped and the infested brood removed. The workers performed brood removal by eating the larvae/pupae in a form of brood cannibalism. Complete discarded bodies were not observed. The control groups remained almost untouched. Fifty percent of the artificially infested brood had been removed by the second and third day of the observation period. After 96 h > 90% of the infested brood was removed by the A cerana worker bees.

"Response of Apis cerana towards brood infested with Varroa" --Rath, Drescher Apidologie

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