Continuous Management of Varroa Mite in Honey Bee, Apis Mellifera, Colonies

The Varroa mite has many deleterious impacts on honey bee colonies. These impacts are well known and include, for example, the weakness of honey bees by feeding on the haemolymph (Rosenkranz et al. 2010), transportation of viruses to host bees including Kashmir bee virus (Chen et al. 2004), suppresses the immunity of honey bees (Shen et al. 2005), impact bee wing Shape (Cakmak et al. 2011) and can impact virgin queenʼs acceptance and mating success (Rateb et al. 2010). Due to the importance of the Varroa as a major pest to honey bee colonies, various studies have been done worldwide on this mite to investigate its biology, behavior and means of control. Different reviews were presented to cover the wide range of topics related to Varroa. Tolerance of honey bees in South America to Varroa mite was reviewed by Rosenkranz (1999). Imdorf et al. (1999) reviewed the use of essential oils as a control method while pathogen based biopesticides were reviewed by Meikle et al. (2012). Calis et al. (1999a) reviewed mite control based on using trapping in honey bee brood. The biology and control methods of Varroa were reviewed by Rosenkranz et al. (2010) while Dietemann et al. (2012) presented a review about Varroa mite followed by a suggested short and long term plans towards Varroa control. Czirják and Monica (2013) reviewed the different options available for the control of Varroa mite in Romania. Recently, Dietemann et al. (2013) presented standard methods for Varroa research. This paper aims to present a guide to the available Varroa control options and to review the CONTINUOUS MANAGEMENT OF VARROA MITE IN HONEY BEE, APIS MELLIFERA, COLONIES