Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Horizon House, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Meliponini and Apini Research Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
PLoS One. 2024 Sep 6;19(9):e0301880. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301880. eCollection 2024.
Tropilaelaps spp. are invasive mites that cause severe disease in Apis mellifera colonies. The UK has deployed an elaborate surveillance system that seeks to detect these mites early in any invasion to allow the best opportunity to eradicate any incursion. Effective field and laboratory protocols, capable of reliably detecting low numbers of mites, are key to the success of any intervention. Here we compared the efficacy of established field monitoring using brood removal with an uncapping fork, and brood 'bump' methods with novel methods for Tropilaelaps detection modified from Varroa monitoring schemes. In addition, we monitored the efficacy of the laboratory method for screening for mites in hive debris by floating mites in ethanol. Our results clearly indicated that novel methods such as uncapping infested brood with tweezers, catching mite drop using sticky traps and rolling adult bees in icing sugar were all significantly more likely to detect Tropilaelaps than existing methods such as using an uncapping fork on infested brood, or the brood 'bump' method. Existing laboratory protocols that sieved hive debris and then floated the mite containing layer failed to detect Tropilaelaps mites and new efficacious protocols were developed. Our results demonstrated that the national surveillance protocols for Tropilaelaps mite detection required modification to improve the early detection of this damaging invasive mite.
Tropilaelaps 属螨是一种侵袭性螨，可导致蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）群体发生严重疾病。英国部署了一种精心设计的监测系统，旨在早期发现这些螨的入侵，以便有最佳机会根除任何入侵。有效的现场和实验室方案，能够可靠地检测到少量螨，是任何干预措施取得成功的关键。在这里，我们比较了使用幼虫移除的现有田间监测方法（用开脾刀）和幼虫“撞击”方法的效果，以及从瓦螨监测方案修改的 Tropilaelaps 检测新方法的效果。此外，我们还监测了通过在乙醇中漂浮螨来筛选蜂箱碎片中螨的实验室方法的效果。我们的研究结果清楚地表明，与现有的方法（如用开脾刀处理感染幼虫，或幼虫撞击法）相比，一些新方法（如用镊子打开感染的幼虫，用粘性陷阱捕捉螨滴，或在成年蜜蜂上滚糖粉）都能更有效地检测到 Tropilaelaps 属螨。现有的筛选蜂箱碎片并漂浮含有螨层的实验室方法未能检测到 Tropilaelaps 属螨，因此开发了新的有效方法。我们的研究结果表明，需要修改国家 Tropilaelaps 属螨检测监测方案，以提高对这种破坏性入侵螨的早期检测。
