Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are important pollinators of many crops, such as blueberry, pome fruits, and canola. In recent years, many honey bee colonies have been lost because of infection with the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor.The mite has two major life stages: the phoretic stage, in which it preferentially attaches to nurse bees and feeds on their haemolymph, and the reproductive phase, in which the mites reproduce within brood cells. The mites detect their host bees by the sense of smell (olfaction), mainly concentrated in a pit organ located on the front legs. We have discovered volatile compounds that alter the preference of a phoretic mite between nurse and forager by apparently changing the way in which the mite perceives the nurse bees. Olfactory detection of nurse bees was quantified by electrophysiology on isolated varroa front legs. The compounds change the strength of the depolarization responses of varroa front legs towards nurse bee head space odor. Active compounds cause a mite to choose a forager over a nurse in laboratory bioassays. The implication of this alteration in mite behavior is profound, as foragers stay in the periphery of the colony, away from the brood area where the mites reproduce. This presentation will cover the discovery of varroa mite deterrents and how such compounds could contribute to honey bee health.

Discovery of varroa mite deterrents

248th National Meeting (2014)

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