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Diagnosis | Varroa destructor mite infestation

Lab Animal volume 34, pages 20–21 (2005)Cite this article

The red organisms are Varroa mites, primary parasites of honey bees that can be found throughout much of the world. These mites were identified as Varroa destructor (formerly known as Varroa jacobsoni), the most destructive pest of the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, in Europe and the United States. Oudemans11 first described this mite on the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana) in Java. About 60 years later, the mite was found on western honey bee specimens in Hong Kong and the Philippines, from where it then spread rapidly worldwide12. One of the earliest reports of Varroa mites found in the United States was in Maryland in 1979 (ref. 13). However, the mite did not become fully established as a pest until 1987 (ref. 13), and to date it is still not known how or when the Varroa mite was first introduced into the United States. Currently the Varroa mite is present worldwide, on all continents except Australia.

In temperate zones, the loss of colonies due to mite infestation occurs mainly during colony overwintering15. When the mite population is low, there is no obvious negative effect on the bee colony, and infestation is often clinically inapparent. However, heavily infested colonies may show severe reductions in brood rearing and foraging. El-Bassiouny et al.16 showed that honey bee colonies could tolerate an infestation of 0.12 mites/bee without sustaining colony injury, but colonies with mite densities above 0.26 mites/bee show a reduction in performance parameters. When the mite population increases in poorly managed apiaries, and reaches a level that the colony can no longer tolerate, the colony loses social organization and collapses. The mite can physically or physiologically damage heavily infested individual bees during their development in the brood cell. Compared with noninfested workers, adult bees infested as pupae do not fully develop the physiological features typical of long-lived wintering bees15. Harmful effects include shorter lifespan, weight loss, wing and limb deformity, and reduced natural resistance to infections15. Heavily infested colonies will not show any signs of harm until late summer, and may still produce good honey yields. However, a closer look will show mites on adult bees, heavily infested drones and worker brood, and many mites per brood cell (Figs. 1 and 3).

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Figure 3: A Varroa mite, the red discoid structure, on the body of a honey bee larva.

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Diagnosis | Varroa destructor mite infestation. Lab Anim 34, 20–21 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban0705-20

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