The Varroa mite: Its life cycle, behaviour and relationship with bees

摘要

I am writing this while at the University of Wageningen, in the Netherlands, where my colleague has been selecting honeybee colonies for their ability to live with Vorroa without treatment.Their selection procedure, now in its 12th year, is simple3. Colonies that are strong enough in early spring to produce drones are kept. Others are discarded. In summer the colony's queen is removed with some of her workers, to produce a small artificial swarm. The remaining colony will raise its own queens. The resulting virgins will be used to split the colony into multiple colonies after two weeks.