> the bees do not immediately chew down the pupa to get the varroa after 
> uncapping, wouldn’t you assume from this that the bees are not after the 
> varroa?,,, because if they were uncapping due to varroa, wouldn’t you 
> expect them to rapidly continue chewing down the pupa immediately after 
> uncapping the cell to get to the varroa?

Working as an inspector, I have seen this in hundreds of hives. My take on
it is: the pupae are dead. I think the bees slightly open up a dead cell,
whether it is dead from foulbrood, varroa or chalkbrood. However, a worker
bee never finishes a task. They flit about doing a bit here and a bit there.
So the dead pupae may be unattended to for some time. Eventually, it will
get removed if there are enough workers available for this task. If there
are too many dead, it seems that they get overwhelmed by the work. Or, in
the case of foulbrood, they seem to have an aversion to the dead material,
maybe because of the smell? 

pb

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