> ........................................  This mineral oil will make the
> mites sick, and
> at the same time have no effect on the bees and they will carry on in
> numbers and be stronger for it.  Idea.. more bees = more of a chance to
> develope immunity.
 
I believe that immunity doesn't apply to bees' reaction to tracheal or
varroa mites. It would be sort of like people developing immunity to bullet
holes. You can avoid getting shot, but once you're shot, you're shot.
In other words, it's a matter of behavior. For bees to take care of varroa
by themselves, they would have to "learn" to kill them and remove them
(as some other species of bees seem to). Further, if we remove the
varroa for them (via mineral oil), they would have less reason to "learn".
As for tracheal mites, I don't know if they're big enough for bees to
learn to deal with.
 
On the other hand, if we're speaking of viruses (and quite a few folks
seem to believe that bee colonies die of viruses they acquire from being
stressed by mites, not that they die of the mites themselves), then
there's a case for immunity.
 
 
Conrad Sigona
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