Trevor said:
Talking with Dr. Denis Anderson he has done a lot of work on varroa and
cerana.

Thanks Trevor for the update. A very complicated subject. When I first came
on BEE-L I did a search of the word cerana and got no hits. Different today.

I said back then and still believe today that the answer to a bee able to
live with VD lies with cerana.

If only we could keep varroa alive in the lab for over a week to find a
weakness.

. Not wanting to take away from Trevor's excellent post but when referring
to varroa reproduction on cerana we are only referring to varroa reproducing
in drone cells as I have been told over and over that varroa does not and
has never been known to reproduce in a single cerana worker cell. Perhaps
Denis Anderson will find different in the future.

As Dee will say reducing cell size of mellifera to the worker cell size of
cerana has not stopped varroa from reproducing in worker cells
*completely*( as is the case with cerana).

Cerana and mellifera are closely related BUT WILL NOT CROSS!

Many researchers (not sure of Anderson's opinion) believe that cerana has a
different juvenile growth hormone with seems to deter varroa from
reproducing in cerana  worker brood but only an unproven hypothesis but a
hypothesis I lean to believe (at present time).

Interesting subject!

Bob

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