Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
J Insect Sci. 2022 Jan 1;22(1). doi: 10.1093/jisesa/ieab089.
The American beekeeping industry continually experiences colony mortality with annual losses as high as 43%. A leading cause of this is the exotic, ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman (Mesostigmata: Varroidae). Integrated Pest Management (IPM) options are used to keep mite populations from reaching lethal levels, however, due to resistance and/or the lack of suitable treatment options, novel controls for reducing mites are warranted. Oxalic acid for controlling V. destructor has become a popular treatment regimen among commercial and backyard beekeepers. Applying vaporized oxalic acid inside a honey bee hive is a legal application method in the U.S., and results in the death of exposed mites. However, if mites are in the reproductive stage and therefore under the protective wax capping, oxalic acid is ineffective. One popular method of applying oxalic is vaporizing multiple times over several weeks to try and circumvent the problem of mites hiding in brood cells. By comparing against control colonies, we tested oxalic acid vaporization in colonies treated with seven applications separated by 5 d (35 d total). We tested in apiaries in Georgia and Alabama during 2019 and 2020, totaling 99 colonies. We found that adult honey bees Linnaeus (Hymenoptera: Apidae), and developing brood experienced no adverse impacts from the oxalic vaporization regime. However, we did not find evidence that frequent periodic application of oxalic during brood-rearing periods is capable of bringing V. destructor populations below treatment thresholds.
美国养蜂业不断遭受蜂群死亡率的困扰，每年的损失高达 43%。造成这种情况的一个主要原因是外来的、外寄生螨虫，瓦螨（Mesostigmata: Varroidae）。综合虫害管理（IPM）选项用于防止螨虫种群达到致命水平，然而，由于抗药性和/或缺乏合适的治疗选择，有必要开发新的控制螨虫的方法。草酸用于控制瓦螨已经成为商业和后院养蜂者中流行的治疗方案。在美国，将汽化的草酸应用于蜜蜂蜂巢内是一种合法的应用方法，可导致暴露的螨虫死亡。然而，如果螨虫处于繁殖阶段，因此受到蜡质封盖的保护，草酸就无效了。一种流行的应用草酸的方法是在数周内多次汽化，试图规避螨虫藏身于幼虫细胞的问题。通过与对照群进行比较，我们在经过 5 天（共 35 天）7 次处理的蜂群中测试了草酸汽化。我们在 2019 年和 2020 年在佐治亚州和阿拉巴马州的养蜂场进行了测试，共有 99 个蜂群。我们发现，成年蜜蜂（膜翅目：蜂科）和发育中的幼虫没有受到草酸汽化处理的不利影响。然而，我们没有证据表明在育雏期间频繁定期应用草酸能够将瓦螨种群数量降低到治疗阈值以下。
