The parasitic mite, Varroa destructor, seriously impacts honey bee colony survival. Various mechanisms of resistance to Varroa have been identified in honey bees. One mechanism is hygienic behavior, in which bees remove mite-infested brood, eliminating the progeny of the mites. “Suppression of mite reproduction” (SMR) is another heritable trait of honey bees, and appears to be a more important mechanism of resistance to the mite than hygienic behavior. Previous results showed that mites enter cells that containing 5th instar worker larvae but fail to reproduce successfully. Our field results indicated that bees bred for SMR also display hygienic behavior, which was unexpected because they were not selectively bred for this trait. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that most mites in colonies bred for SMR do reproduce, but those that initiate reproduction are detected and removed by the hygienic processes. Mites that do not initiate reproduction are not detected by the bees, and remain in the cells. To test this hypothesis, mite reproduction in SMR, hygienic, and unselected (control) colonies was sampled from worker brood that was either caged, so that the bees were not allowed to uncap and remove the pupae, or uncaged so worker were able to uncap and remove parasitized pupae. Our preliminary results support the hypothesis that SMR bees uncap and remove parasitized pupae on which the mites have successfully reproduced. The extent of this removal behavior will be discussed further.
Species 1: Hymenoptera Apidae Apis mellifera (honey bee)
Species 2: Acari Varroidae Varroa destructor (varroa mite)
Keywords: hygienic behavior
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