>  In Cuba it has been observed that strong colonies typically with drone brood do not weaken during the drought season, whereas colonies without drone brood are weak and often die during the drought (APP personal comm).

Of course the colonies which are weak will have far less drone brood, and be the first to fail. Abundant drone brood a the sign of vigor, not the other way around. 

By the way, a quick glance at statistics shows that Cuba and Florida have about the same amount of land. Florida reports 600,000+ domestic hives and countless feral ones. Cuba reports 200,000+ kept hives and my view is that the feral population vastly exceeds this. Without factoring in the feral population as a gene pool, nobody has a handle on what is going on there. Everything we have heard about queen rearing in Cuba is hearsay. No one has offered anything to back up the notion that queen replacement is widespread in Cuba, other than it's "the government policy." I think more facts and less conjectures would better serve the discussion.

The idea was proffered that "Under those conditions, explosive colony growth does not happen." I think this is critical. Dave de Jong presented this idea two decades ago when EAS was here in Ithaca. Northern colonies explode in summer, mite levels follow the curve. Then when the bee population starts to cut way back in anticipation of winter, the mites get the upper hand. In a region with brood all year round and day length constant, the mite dynamics are much different. Further, as Dave de Jong also said, the bees from Africa tend to be better able to deal with varroa overall for whatever reason. It has been asserted that Cuba doesn't have African bees but its close neighbors Florida and Mexico certainly do.

PLB

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