A scientific note on a new pest for European honeybees: first report of small hive beetle Aethina tumida, (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) in Italy

Behavioral responses of the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida, to odors of three meliponine bee species and honey bees, Apis mellifera scutellata

“…Our findings provide behavioral evidence of laboratory-based SHB attraction to Meliponula species that are native to Africa. This finding is consistent with similar investigations on the honey bee and bumble bee (Spiewok & Neumann, 2006;Graham et al, 2011;Palmeri et al, 2015;Neumann et al, 2016) indicating that eusocial bee colony odors provide critical cues for host-searching SHBs.…”

“…The beetles inflict negligible damage to its host but, upon hatching, the larvae feed on pollen and honey, putrefying hive products as they simultaneously defecate leading to comb honey contamination and sometimes colony collapse in severe cases (Figure 1). In the past two decades, it has become an invasive pest of European honey bees in the Americas, Australia, and Asia (Ellis et al, 2002;Neumann & Elzen, 2004;Ellis & Hepburn, 2006;Spiewok & Neumann, 2006;Graham et al, 2011;Pirk & Neumann, 2013;Mustafa et al, 2014), and most recently Europe (Palmeri et al, 2015). The SHB has also been found in the nests of other Apidae members such as the bumble bee Bombus impatiens Cresson (Stanghellini et al, 2000;Spiewok & Neumann, 2006;Mustafa et al, 2014) and some neotropical meliponine bee species of the genera Trigona and Dactylurina in various parts of the world, such as Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa (Greco et al, 2010;Halcroft et al, 2011;Neumann et al, 2016;Nkoba et al, 2012;Peña et al, 2014;Anguilet et al, 2017).…”

Introduction of Aethina tumida (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) in the regions of Calabria and Sicily (southern Italy)

“…tumida was exotic to Europe until September 2014, when Italy reported an outbreak in the south of the country (Mutinelli et al 2014;Palmeri et al 2015). The pest was reported for the first time on 5 September 2014 (Palmeri et al 2015) in the municipality of Gioia Tauro, in the region of Calabria,southern Italy (38.4547 N,15.9411 E). The infested hives were located close to Gioia Tauro, an international port through which more than two million containers pass in transit per year from all over the world.…”

The first detection of Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) in the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida Murray (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae)

“…Native to Sub-Saharan Africa (Lundie 1940;Schmoke 1974), it has been detected in several countries worldwide since 1996 and presently, it is distributed on all continents except Antarctica (Al Toufailia et al 2017;Lee et al 2017;Neumann et al 2016). It is widely distributed in North America and parts of Australia (Neumann et al 2016), but has recently been found in Europe (da Silva 2014; Granato et al 2017;Murilhas 2004;Palmeri et al 2015). This species is an ecological generalist (Ellis and Hepburn 2006) that is capable of creating persistent populations with low density of honey bees (Arbogast et al 2009).…”