Tuesday, 16 November 2004 - 1:24 PM
0112

Thermal death kinetics of the honey bee and its parasite, Varroa destructor

Zachary Huang, bees@msu.edu and Yuchuan Qin, qiny@msu.edu. Michigan State Univ, Dept. of Entomology, 243 Natural Science Building, East Lansing, MI

Although many papers have discussed the possibility of using heat to kill the varroa mite, there is no systematic data showing the thermal death kinetics of either the varroa mite or its host the honey bee. Here we present thermal death kinetics of both species by recording the mortality of both under various temperature-time combinations. Our data show a large difference in the mortalities between the honey bee and the varroa mite, especially at temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius.


Species 1: Hymenoptera Apidae Apis mellifera (European honey bee)
Species 2: Acarina Varoidae Varroa destructor (varroa mite)
Keywords: heat treatment, Varroa mite

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