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Varroa sensitive hygiene

About: Varroa sensitive hygiene is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 24928 citations. The topic is also known as: VSH.


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01 Jan 1980

1 citations

01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: It is shown that Varroa was able to reproduce at similar levels to those found in European bees which explained the huge mite populations previously reported, and the developmental time of the A.m. scutellata bee was reviewed to find that although they do process one of the shortest sealed brood developmental times found among A. mellifera races it is sufficient for VarroA populations to increase within these colonies.
Abstract: The destructive mite Varroa destructor was first found in the Cape region of South Africa by P. KRYGER in August 1997. By 2000 it had spread from the Cape region occupied by Apis mellifera capensis bees to the highveld regions around Pretoria and southern end of the Kruger National Park, both regions occupied by A.m. scutellata bees. There has been much speculation about the impact of Varroa in South Africa for two reasons: 1.) It has been shown that the rapid development of the sealed brood phase of A.m. capensis may severely affect the ability of the mite to produce viable offspring. 2.) Africanised bees, a hybrid of African bee’s A.m. scutellata (Pretoria region) and European bees, are naturally tolerant to Varroa in South and Central America. Therefore, it was hoped that the African bees would show a similar natural tolerance towards the mite. Initially there were reports of honeybee colonies in South Africa that were apparently healthy despite harbouring tens of thousands of mites (M. ALLSOPP, pers. com.). Therefore, we compared the reproductive ability of mites invading sealed brood cells of A.m. scutellata with previous studies carried out on both Africanised and European bees. We showed that Varroa was able to reproduce at similar levels to those found in European bees which explained the huge mite populations previously reported. We also reviewed the developmental time of the A.m. capensis bee. We found that although they do process one of the shortest sealed brood developmental times found among A. mellifera races it is sufficient for Varroa populations to increase within these colonies. This finding was confirmed by some direct observations of the number of mature females emerging from cells occupied by A.m. capensis workers. It is proposed that the initial ability of the colonies to survive with large mite populations is due to the natural rarity of the overt form of key bee viruses such as deformed wing virus which is transmitted by the mite and leads to the collapse of the colony. Thus, it is predicted that once the viruses become established within the Varroa infested colonies, the wide spread bee losses that have occurred in many countries will occur in South Africa.

1 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article , the authors employed a unique combination of transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and functional analyses to reveal new details about the effect of Varroa mites and naturally associated factors, including viruses, on honey bees.

1 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202327
202255
20216
20203
20193
20184