A scientific note on Varroa jacobsoni Oudemans and the collapse of Apis mellifera L. colonies in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The number of mites (cumulated total, peak and monthly means) in the debris was found to be a poor indicator of colony survivorship in the following year. The total yearly natural mite drop ranged from 10 000 to 40 000 (mean = 20 000 ± s.e. = 3 800, n = 7) in colonies which lived the following year and from 10 000 to 60 000 (mean = 29 000 ± s.e. = 6 000, n = 8) in those that collapsed in the following year. This corresponds to estimated peak mite populations of 2 500 to 15 000 in surviving colonies and 2 600 to 16 000 mites in collapsing colonies, as indicated by a mite model [8]. Other bee diseases (foulbrood, chalkbrood, Nosema apis, Amoeba and the parasite Acarapis woodi ) were either not detected or at insignificant levels.Overall, six types of virus were found in adult worker bees and one in brood (table I). Three of these, filamentous virus (FV), bee virus X (BVX) and bee virus Y (BVY) are associated * Correspondence and reprints.

Seasonal prevalence of pathogens and parasites in the savannah honeybee (Apis mellifera scutellata)

“…The absence of DWV from the honeybee and Varroa mite samples collected during this study was unexpected given its high prevalence in apiaries around the world (Allen and Ball, 1996;Baker and Schroeder, 2008;Berényi et al, 2006;Chen and Siede, 2007;Ellis and Munn, 2005;Martin et al, 1998;Tentcheva et al, 2004a) and the close association of DWV with Varroa mites (Bailey and Ball, 1991;Bowen-Walker et al, 1999;Dainat et al, 2012a;Gisder et al, 2009;Martin et al, 2012;Yang and CoxFoster, 2005;Yue and Genersch, 2005). Recently, DWV was also found to be absent from wild A. m. scutellata drones collected in a South African Nature Reserve and honeybee samples from Uganda (Kajobe et al, 2010).…”

Prevalence and Seasonal Variations of Six Bee Viruses in Apis mellifera L. and Varroa destructor Mite Populations in France

“…Several reports on the presence of honey bee viruses in A. mellifera L. populations in different countries have been published (6,10,20,23,25,27), some of them before the spread of V. destructor in Europe. Most of these reports were based on symptomatic or dead bees collected at the hive entrance, sometimes after colony collapse; i.e., most of the time the data were obtained from a few samples that were not representative of the natural occurrence of virus infections in bee colonies.…”

Prevalence and phylogenetic analysis of honey bee viruses in the Biobío Region of Chile and their association with other honey bee pathogens

“…We detected N. ceranae in co-infection with BQCV and DWV in only one of the apiaries. Numerous viral diseases have been reported to be associated with V. destructor infestation (Ball and Allen, 1988;Allen and Ball, 1996;Martin et al, 1998;Tentcheva et al, 2004). In this work we analyzed the presence of DWV, BQCV, SBV, and ABPV in V. destructor, but we only detected DWV in mite samples.…”