So it's important to take into account the *percentage* of precapping-age drone pupa at any given time relative to the percentage of 8-day worker brood.  For example, at a realistic ratio of 5% drone brood, Fuchs found around 35% of the mites entering drone brood.


When you do the math,  this shows that the Drone brood is more attractive than worker brood, for some other reason than just Open time, and random chance
That extra 48 hoours x 5% doesn’t come up to 1/3 the mites

Add to that,  and correct me if I am mistaken,  but mites enter the cell just before capping,  and that time period of open to mites would be fairly equal to either type brood (IE 12 hours before cappings)

Doesn’t that completely negate the concept that Mite selection of cells is random???



Charles

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