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Mortality of mite offspring: a major component of Varroa destructor resistance in a population of Africanized bees

2006; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1051/apido

1297-9678

Luis Mondragón, Stephen J. Martin, Rémy Vandame,

Insect-Plant Interactions and Control

The role of Varroa destructor reproduction in the overall resistance to these mites by a population of honeybees in Mexico was studied.Since previous work showed the number of mated female offspring produced per foundress mites on worker brood (Wr) to be a main factor of resistance, we evaluated the changes in mortality of mite offspring in worker and drone brood throughout a year in groups of Africanized and Africanized × European honeybee colonies, which have a similar level of mite resistance.The variation in the Wr was highly correlated with the mortality of the first (male) and the third (female) offspring (r 2 = 0.67 and r 2 = 0.53 respectively).Moreover, the fecundity of mites in single infested worker and drone cells was greater than in multiply infested cells.The Wr and the Dr decreased between cells infested by 1 and 3 foundresses (from 0.9 to 0.4 and from 1.8 to 0.9 respectively).These data show that in the honeybee population studied, mite reproduction is strongly affected by offspring mortality during certain periods of the year, and that it is probably dependent on the foundress density.