Honey bees (Apis mellifera) preselected for Varroa sensitive hygiene discriminate between live and dead Varroa destructor and inanimate objects.

ABSTRACT: Varroa destructor is one of the main causes of colony losses of the western honey bee (Apis mellifera). Many efforts exist to breed honey bees resistant to V. destructor. Varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH) is a commonly selected behavioural trait; VSH workers remove the pupae of mite infested brood cells with high efficiency, interrupting the reproduction of the mite. The cues and triggers for this behaviour are not yet fully understood. To determine what elicits this removal behaviour, we examined preselected VSH workers´ responses to four different groups of objects inserted into freshly capped cells: live mites, dead mites, odour reduced mites, and glass beads. These were also compared to control cells that were opened and closed without inserting any object. The pupae in cells containing i

SUBMITTER: Sprau L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10293197 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature