Hello Jim! Thanks for responding to my letter! You seem more familiar with the experiment than I. I do have a few questions. Thanks in advance for helping me understand the Seeley experiment. James Fischer <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >The survival of the "feral colonies" was not due to any unique >trait of the bees, but instead, due to traits in the local >population of the >>>VARROA mites<<<. >…Because the difference in the Aront Forest is in the >VARROA, not in the bees. OK, here in the abstract, ‘you referenced’ what Seeley said: >colonies of Arnot Forest bees and New World Carniolan >bees were inoculated with mites from an apiary…” My question is: Seeley is assuming the KEY to mite resistance in the Arnot ferals is caused by the 'averlence of the mites in that population', Then mite avirulence must be already present in our apiaries because that’s where Seeley harvested his mites for the experiment, NOT from the Arnot feral honeybee mite population. Seeley did not use mites from the Arnot feral population, so how does this prove anything about the averlence of mites in this feral population when he did not use ‘said; averlent mites’? Please explain, Best Wishes, Joe Waggle ~ Derry, PA ‘Bees Gone Wild Apiaries' FeralBeeProject.com http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HoneybeeArticles ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************