Re: varroa destructor introduction and evolution

> I heard on the CBC not long ago that bee colonies throughout North
> America were collapsing inexplicably.

But not because of Varroa Mites 'Destructor or Jacobsoni' something else.=


In certain areas of the world a significant percentage of massed hives of=

honeybees have disappeared i.e. not died in the hive. The few bees that
remained in these 'collapsed' hives that were scrutinized scientifically
would appear to have lost their immune system against a lot of common
viruses and bacteria they had previously resisted.

Science now is tainted by funding and leader****p directly from global
commerce. The reason for this is to discourage the disparagement of comme=
rce
that scientific inquiry might uncover. If someday in the future when glob=
al
science is not being influenced by this ideology of commerce at all cost,=
 we
may know what it was precisely that caused all those bees to disappear.

> newspaper about Varroa Destructor, which Wikipedia indicates was known
> throughout the world for quite some time.=20
> Why would it be a mystery
> in North America not too long ago?

I don't see the mystery, hybridizing within species is natural. You might=

change the name but the bug remains essentially the same:

http://www.ento.okstate.edu/ddd/insects/varroamite.htm

> Isn't this inbreeding of the most intense kind?  Why haven't
> they inbred themselves into dysfunctionality and unsurvivability by
> now?

A queen honeybee lays eggs if she chooses she lays a few she doesn't
fertilize with sperm. The bee from this egg becomes a drone. If the worke=
rs
of this hive create queen cells and a virgin flight occurs many drones fr=
om
this hive also go forth. It is highly probable the virgin queen will be
fertilized by some or all of her male brothers. What's the difference in
this and what you've described in the varroa cycle?

The following article describes how drones from one queen will have
identical sperm. If drones from other hives are successful in adding thei=
r
sperm during the queen's flight, then that sperm will be different. When =
the
new queen returns and begins to lay eggs the bees that emerge will contai=
n
the sperm from different drones. If you'll notice, bees in a hive [or at
least my hives] are not all little clones. There are some with bands on
their abdomen and some completely black. This tells you that queen wasn't=

artificially inseminated and also carries the sperm from more than one dr=
one.

Here's the science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(bee)

Humans on the other hand are quite inbred: it is part of our genetic
composure. From recent advances in understanding the human genome, humans=

have 46 chromosomes whereas the higher primates have 48. Human chromosome=

no.2 is a fusion of two ancestral primate chromosomes. The only way that =
46
chromosomes could have become fixed into the protohuman population would
have been by relations between one original individual with the intermedi=
ate
number of 47 chromosomes and his viable 47 chromosomes offspring.=B9

=B9a fact not an opinion

--=20
CK