Knowing that not everyone has access to Apidologie, I have included a small excerpt here:

>Comparison of V. destructor reproduction in A. m. scutellata, EHB and AHB
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>The reproductive ability of V. destructor in this study was compared with that from previous studies (Tab. I). The order in which the mites are able to reproduce successfully is:
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>A. cerana drone >> A. m. scutellata drone = European Honey Bee drone >> A. m. scutellata worker = EHB worker > Africanized HB worker >> A. m. capensis "pseudo-clone".
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>Therefore, the Korea haplotype of V. destructor is able to reproduce within A. m. scutellata colonies at levels similar to that found in EHB  and the tolerance shown by AHB towards the mites (Medina and Martin, 1999) appears to be lacking in A. m. scutellata.

Comment:
Many reports have come out of South and Central America that varroa is not a significant problem with the Africanized bees there. Several theories have been promoted. One was that varroa were less capable of reproducing in the smaller cells that African bees make (5mm). Another, more recent theory is that the varroa in that region is not the same "type" as in the temperate areas. A third, which more successfully explains the fact that varroa do seem to be able to reproduce successfully in AHB in Texas, points to climate factors such as heat and humidity.

Martin did detailed studies of A. m. scutellata and scut x capensis crosses to see how varroa reproduced in these colonies compared to data collected by other researchers with EHB and AHB. Results confirm that varroa reproduces much more successfully in drone cells of any species than worker cells of any species.  And that they reproduce as well or better in scutellata cells than they do in European or Africanized bees.

Despite the fact that capensis bees had the lowest varroa reproductive success rate in his tests, Martin reports "dramatic increase in mite numbers (10 000+) in colonies in the Western Cape region of South Africa (Allsopp, 1998, 1999), an area mainly occupied by A. m. capensis."

pb