Abstract
Varroa-specific hygienic behavior is a hereditary trait of honey bee (Apis mellifera), which supports resistance to Varroa destructor. This study investigated the response of Apis mellifera scutellata to Varroa-infested worker brood cells in Kenya, East Africa. Uncapping, removal of the brood, and disappearance of the introduced mite were recorded in a total of 690 cells into which live mites were introduced. We recorded a high proportion of untouched cells in controls (median, 80%) compared to manipulated cells in which mites had been introduced (median, 12.5%) with a significant difference (GLMM, p < 0.001). Mites were removed and cells were recapped in about 26% of the artificially infested brood cells. When ten, eight, and five mites were singly introduced in closely neighboring brood cells, hygienic bees were more responsive in the high mite density regime of eight and ten mites, an indication of a possibility that chemicals play a role in identification of Varroa-infested brood cells.
Highlights
Bee keeping globally has shown a significant trend of colony increase of more than 60% over the past 50 years from 1961 to 2013 (Moritz and Erler 2016)
When categories were arranged according to their relationship to classical categories of Varroa -specific hygienic behavior, uncapping (CO, brood and mite removed (BR), MR) and removing (BR, MR), their expression showed a dependency on the number of mites introduced
Of the 690 brood cells (69 brood cells per colony) artificially introduced with mites, Apis mellifera scutellata bees were able to uncap, remove the mite and recap 25.8% of the brood cells (178 of 690 manipulated cells) and removed 33.5% of the infested pupae together with the mite (231 of 690 manipulated cells). This is comparable to previous studies that compared to Africanized bees and Carniolan bees reported that 10% of the infested pupae had been removed by Varroa -specific hygienic (VSH) bees and in about one third of the manipulated cells the mite had been removed (Aumeier et al 2000; Aumeier and Rosenkranz 2001)
Summary
Bee keeping globally has shown a significant trend of colony increase of more than 60% over the past 50 years from 1961 to 2013 (Moritz and Erler 2016). Localized colony losses have been reported in some countries, especially on the Northern hemisphere (Neumann and Carreck 2010), contributed majorly by global honey trade and societal transition (Aizen and Harder 2009; Moritz and Erler 2016) among other factors such. The hemophagous honey bee mite Varroa destructor is considered one of the major ectoparasites of honey bees of great economic importance to beekeepers (Neumann and Carreck 2010; Rosenkranz et al 2010). 70 h after the cell capping, the first egg is laid (Ifantidis 1983) and the mites produce offspring, which will engage in brother-sister mating in fecal accumulation site (Donze et al 1996), while the cell is still capped
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