Natural control for bee pest

Natural chemicals that draw the parasitic mite, Varroa, away from worker bees have been identified, and French scientists have isolated these chemicals from substances taken from bee larvae. Varroa jacobsoni has been spreading throughout the world since 1968 and has destroyed hundreds of thousands of honey bee colonies. The parasitic mites cling to the bees and suck out body fluids. This weakens the bees and shortens their lives. At the moment acaricides keep Varroa partially under control, but there are harmful side affects. Control is made more difficult because female mites spend some time in sealed bee larvae cells where they proliferate. The researchers found that the female mites are drawn to the bee larvae by a chemical attractant, and it is this chemical that has been isolated. In preliminary trials compounds containing the chemical attractants made the mites leave their hosts when they fell to the hive floor where they were easily caught and destroyed. There are good prospects that the chemical could be used by beekeepers to control the pest with a product harmless to bees. Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Compar?des Invertebres - INRA-CNRS - 91440 Bures-sur-Yvette FRANCENatural chemicals that draw the parasitic mite, Varroa, away from worker bees have been identified, and French scientists have isolated these chemicals from substances taken from bee larvae. Varroa jacobsoni has been spreading throughout the world..