The present study was conducted to quantify at the individual level the grooming behavior of bees from resistant colonies and susceptible colonies. Experienced and naive bees from resistant colonies were compared to experienced and naive bees from susceptible colonies at the age of 4, 7, 15 and 21 days. In a total of 480 assays, resistant bees successfully groomed off 10 times more mites placed than susceptible bees. Worker of different ages are involved but the lowest percentage of grooming was observed in 21-day-old bees. The experienced bees from resistant colonies bees that have evolved in a natural environment removed significantly more mites (69.2%) compared to naive bees (51.7%) who had no contact with other older bees.

This epidemiological study aimed to determine the species of tick infestation in dogs, their prevalence and dynamic in the Bejaia province, northeastern Algeria. A total of 631 dogs were examined from different localities of the Bejaia province between March 2016 and February 2017. Of the 631 examined dogs, 15% were infested with one or more tick species. A total of 339 adult ticks were collected and identified, including 199 male tick species and 140 female tick species. Our results revealed that most of these were Rhipicephalus species, with Rhipicephalus sanguineus (51.32%) being the most prevalent followed by Rhipicephalus bursa (35.1%) and Rhipicephalus turanicus (12.98%). Ixodes ricinus represented only 0.6% of all ticks collected. The highest infested seasons were spring (22.55%) and summer (22.54%) and the lowest infested seasons were autumn (8.62%) and winter ( 0.9%). There is no significant difference between the sex of the animal and the prevalence of infestation (p = 0.837). Also, the prevalence of infestation by ticks in young animals was higher than that in adult animals (p = 0.550). A significant difference between the prevalence of infestation and animal breed was observed (p = 0.042). This study is the first epidemiological investigation conducted on the prevalence of hard ticks infesting domestic dogs in Bejaia (northeastern Algeria) based on conventional methods. It is therefore necessary to implement an effective tick control strategy during infestation periods in order to prevent vector-borne diseases.

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