Virus infections in Nordic honey bee colonies with no, low or severe Varroa jacobsoni infestations

Varroa-Virus Interaction in Collapsing Honey Bee Colonies

Varroa mites and viruses are the currently the high-profile suspects in collapsing bee colonies. Therefore, seasonal variation in varroa load and viruses (Acute-Kashmir-Israeli complex (AKI) and Deformed Wing Virus (DWV)) were monitored in a year-long study. We investigated the viral titres in honey bees and varroa mites from 23 colonies (15 apiaries) under three treatment conditions: Organic a...

A population model for the ectoparasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies

The ectoparasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni Oud. presently poses one of the most serious problems faced by keepers of honeybees Apis mellifera L. To help understand why the mite has become such a serious problem a population dynamics model using recently published data has been constructed. The simulation model has been built by linking together various aspects of the mites’ biology using computer ...

Honey bee hygienic behavior and defense against Varroa jacobsoni

to test whether they would remove experimentally infested pupae following methods of Boecking and Drescher (1992). In 1994, the hygienic colonies removed significantly more pupae infested with one mite per cell than the non-hygienic colonies. In 1995, there was no significant difference between the hygienic and non-hygienic colonies when one or two mites were introduced per pupa due to variatio...

Using inert dusts to detect and assess varroa infestations in honey bee colonies

The dynamics of virus epidemics in Varroa - infested honey bee colonies

1. When the parasitic mite Varroa jumped species from the eastern to the western honey bee, millions of infested bee colonies died. Recent work has revealed that the probable cause of this collapse is that mites provide a new route of transmission, by acting as a vector, for certain bee viruses. 2. Using a mathematical model parameterized by recently collected data on bee viruses, we investigat...