The biggest cause of death in managed honey bee colonies is the infestation
by the ectoparasite, Varroa destructor. This mite feed on the fat bodies and hemolymph
of Honey bees transmitting deadly viruses. However, there is a honey bee that already
defeated this mite a long time ago and today it can live harmonically with the parasite. What
can we learn from them? Can beekeepers help the European honey bee with this knowledge?
In this video, video number 2 of this video series, we will start
to look at traits already selected on Apis cerana the original host of varroa mites,
and learn how this honey bee species survive varroa mite parasitism without many problems.
Grab your cup of tea, get comfortable, and let's see what honey bees are going to teach us today.
Intro. Hi I am Dr. Humberto
Boncristiani and you are watching InsideTheHive.TV the show about bees. We talk about honey bee
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a varroa mite infestation in managed honey bee colonies of Apis mellifera will kill that colony.
Apis mellifera, the European honey bee is not fully adapted to deal with the
infestation of this powerful parasite. As you probably saw in my first video in
this video series, about 100 years ago a jumping of species occurred.
Varroa mite found Apis mellifera, the European honey bee for the first time
in the old soviet union when beekeepers were transporting bees in the region.
That was a good deal for Varroa mite, that found a new species to replicate on.
Different from the original host, Apis cerana, Apis mellifera does not have proper defenses in
place to deal with the infestation, allowing the mite to replicate much more efficiently,
damaging the new host significantly. Creating an unbalanced host/parasite relationship.
Apis cerana, the Asian honey bee, has already passed through this situation in the past,
and now after thousands of years of natural selection. Apis cerana and
varroa mite established a balanced host-parasite relationship, where the parasite doesn’t take from
the host too much to the point to kill it. Allowing both to survive in nature together.
What Apis cerana does or have to minimize the damage caused by varroa mite?
In 1987, researchers from the department of entomology in California Davis and
the institute of apicultural research in Beijing China published a scientific article
describing for the first time a behavioral and physiological resistance mechanism of
the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana) to the ectoparasite Varroa destructor.
In this publication the researchers described that varroa mite parasitism induced the Asian
worker bees to perform a series of cleaning behaviors that effectively removed the mites
from the bodies of the adult host bees. These cleaning behaviors, better know
as grooming behavior, consists in the use of legs and mandibles, as well as
abdomen shaking to attempt to remove unwanted material from the honey bees’ bodies. Bees can
self-cleaning themselves or clean other nestmates. Grooming is an important social immune behavior to
avoid the spread of pest and diseases. The Asian Honey Bee didn't stop there.
Another important observation was that right after the grooming behavior, the
mites were subsequently killed and removed from the bee hives in a few seconds to a few minutes.
The Asian honey bee don’t mess around when the subject is varroa mite parasitism.
On top of grooming, execution, and remotion of mites from the nest,
Apis cerana honey bees, could also, rapidly and effectively remove mite infested brood.
But you might be asking yourself. what about the European honey bee apis mellifera. Can
they do the same to fight varroa mite? When the researchers look at the frequency of
these behaviors in Apis mellifera, they found out that the European honey bees are able to
perform similar behaviors but in much lower frequency compared with the Asian honey bees.
And generally failed to remove the mites from both the adult bees and the brood.
These werethe first honey bee traits correlated to varroa mite resistance found, giving some
direction to beekeepers on where to look for potential genetic traits for breeding programs.
But what else Apis cerana could teach us about fighting varroa mites?
this is the what we are talking in the next video. Until then
watch this video right here to know more interesting things about honey bees.
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