>>I talked with Tom about this. The other candidate was bee behavior. Small colonies that swarmed often breaking the brood cycle.

This behavior is of some benefit to the swarms where most of the mites will stay behind in the capped cells of the swarm-source colonies.  Common logic would say these swarm-source colonies should collapse much faster once the new queen's offspring started emerging.  Did Tom observe this?  The swarm-source colonies in the Arnot forest, I think, survice just fine for years.

Waldemar

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