Christina's note was interesting to me as I have been wondering about that myself.   Never thought of 2 mites in a cell as a crossbreed,  as my assumption would have been they were already sisters.

In one thread we are talking about virulence, and here breeding behavior.  Is it possible they are linked,  Linked to such an extent that we are looking at the problem wrong?  
 We all know we get hives that have low counts, sometimes right next to hives with insane counts.  As we also know some hives do fine with a "threshold"  Up until now we have been thinking it’s the Genetics of the bees,   is it possible its actually the genetics of the mite???  Some strains or types reproduce at different levels based on mite genetics,  not bee genetics??

It would certainly explain why some "treatment free" lines fail when moved to another location.



Charles

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