Varroa destructor in Apis mellifera colonies in Brazil

Abstract

We aimed to evaluate the occurrence and level of infestation by Varroa destructor in Apis mellifera from different regions and Köppen-Geiger climate typologies in Brazil. We evaluated a total of 159 managed colonies of A. mellifera (156 Africanized honey bees – AHB + 3 European honey bees – EHB colonies) distributed across all five Brazilian regions (Northern, Northeastern, Midwest, Southern, and Southeastern) from 2014 to 2017. In each colony, approximately 300 adult honey bees were collected to detect and calculate the mite parasitism level, and the A. mellifera colonies are not treated against the mite. Our results showed that V. destructor is disseminated across all Brazilian regions with low levels of infestation (3.8% ± 3.61). The mite infestation level per colony ranged from 0 to 17.4% with significant differences in the infestation level between the five Brazilian regions, where higher infestation levels were found in colonies installed in the Southern (4.1 ± 2.8) and Southeastern (7.2 ± 3.3) regions, and the lowest infestation levels were found in colonies installed in the Northern region (equal to zero). The climate associated with those Brazilian regions presented the lowest (Am and As – Northern region) and highest (C – Southern and Southeastern that are regions less tropical than Northern) Varroa infestation level. We conclude that V. destructor is dispersed in all regions of Brazil with low infestation levels which can be influenced by the climate typology of each region.

Keywords:

• Varroosis
• bee health
• ectoparasite mite
• Africanized honey bee; Apis mellifera

Acknowledgments

We thank the “Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)” for funding via Special Visiting Researcher – PVE (400425/2014-9), Universal Call MCTI/CNPq (01/2016), PQ fellowship for C. A. L. C. (305228/2013-7) and, PDJ fellowship to M. E. C. O. (150731/2017-5). Also, we thank the beekeepers and researchers for sending the honey bees to this study. The Africanized and European honey bees were collected under Sistema de Autorização e Informação em Biodiversidade (SISBIO) license number 50467 and 55056.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.