Adaptation in Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Colonies Exhibiting Tolerance to Varroa destructor in Ireland

Bee World – The First Hundred Years

“…The website of Taylor and Francis provides up to date statistics on citations and article downloads from their website (though there are also other sources to obtain the electronic version of an article). The download numbers suggest, that at present two very recent articles on natural resilience of honey bees against the varroa mite (Blacquière & Panziera, 2018;McMullan, 2018) are the most read, which underlines the interest of readers in scientific discussion of real world problems. Among the most cited articles naturally older articles are included.…”

Darwinian black box selection for resistance to settled invasive Varroa destructor parasites in honey bees

“…Colonies of European A. mellifera subspecies are able to survive V. destructor infestations by means of natural selection, which has been shown in several instances (Seeley 2007;Le Conte et al 2007;Fries et al 2006, reviewed by Locke 2016Oddie et al 2017). Since then, several examples of resilience to this mite acquired within an apicultural setting have been published (Panziera et al 2017;Kruitwagen et al 2017;Kefuss et al 2016;Oddie et al 2017;McMullan 2018). All examples used selection on outcome (survival, vitality (which means well developing colonies), or on (slow) mite population growth), and not on chosen traits such as hygienic behaviour or active grooming behaviour, including the study by Panziera et al (2017), who used exactly the approach outlined in this article.…”

“…There is clear evidence that wild populations of A. mellifera can survive V. destructor infestations by means of natural selection (Seeley 2007;Le Conte et al 2007;Fries et al 2006; see Locke 2016 for a review). This also holds true for managed populations, which have not been treated against V. destructor (Oddie et al 2017(Oddie et al , 2018Kruitwagen et al 2017;Panziera et al 2017;McMullan 2018). Therefore, sustainable beekeeping without the need to treat V. destructor is clearly feasible.…”

A Plea for Use of Honey Bees’ Natural Resilience in Beekeeping

“…This could allow the return to an old-fashioned apiculture free of veterinary drugs. We now also know that the survival of honey bee populations with varroa is possible in nature and in beekeeping operations (Locke, 2016;further examples: Kefuss, Vanpoucke, Bolt, & Kefuss, 2015;McMullan, 2018;Oddie, Dahle, & Neumann, 2017;Panziera, van Langevelde, & Blacquière, 2017), so beekeeping without controlling the mite is no longer an unworldly vision. Only the path to it is controversial: should we go the usual route of breeding and beekeeping (retaining the qualities appreciated by the beekeeper), or should we follow the bees in their hard struggle to survive "in nature"?…”

“…Theoretically, honey bees could have become fully domesticated and would be unable to survive without human intervention. However, there are strong examples showing this is not the case in the USA (Seeley, 2017b), France (Kefuss et al, 2015;Le Conte et al, 2007), Ireland (McMullan, 2018), Netherlands (Panziera et al, 2017), Sweden (Fries, Imdorf, et al, 2006). An important argument to support the idea that bees are able to survive without help is that, before and after varroa, the life expectancy of wild or feralised colonies was not affected: about five to six years for an established colony (Le Conte et al, 2007;Seeley 2017b), which is also similar to the life expectancy (6.6 years) of wild colonies in Australia, where varroa mites are not present (Oldroyd, Thexton, Lawler, & Crozier, 1997).…”