Wasps and varroa

[stephenpug]

Please don't shoot me but do wasps have a problem with varroa and if not do you know why but if they do why is there so many wasps about
I am still in my first year so be gentle with me

 

[beebopalula]

Wasps have no brood nest in the winter - just solitary hibernating queens, so nowhere for the mites to survive.

P.S. Karol will be along in a minute to give you chapter and verse and perhaps correct me.

 

[stephenpug]

Wasps have no brood nest in the winter - just solitary hibernating queens, so nowhere for the mites to survive.

P.S. Karol will be along in a minute to give you chapter and verse and perhaps correct me.

Thank you beebopalula sorry to sound thick but what you say is now obvious

 

[Russel]

Wasps have no brood nest in the winter - just solitary hibernating queens, so nowhere for the mites to survive.

P.S. Karol will be along in a minute to give you chapter and verse and perhaps correct me.

Apparently Bumblebees don't suffer from varroa too, probably for the same reason, but can carry them?

Russ

 

[BeeJayBee]

Isn't varroa species-specific to Apis mellifera?

 

[Karol]

I couldn't decide whether I was being invited to contribute or whether that was reverse psychology at work in a bid to keep me away!

If it was the latter then I'm afraid it failed!!

For what it's worth:

We have never encountered wasps with Varroa. It's not just that they don't over winter as colonies but more importantly, wasps are carnivorous insects and mites (including ticks) form part of their diet, i.e. wasp grubs eat mites and the adults have mandibles that are perfectly suited to incapacitating prey but it's much more complicated than that as per link below . Wasps are also much more resilient to dealing with parasites and diseases with highly evolved quarantining strategies. Sentry wasps for example will prevent sick foragers from returning to the nest. The link below might give an insight into how resourceful wasps can be and how little we actually understand them:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UsvkfzTMFQ[/ame]

 

[Hivemaker.]

Isn't varroa species-specific to Apis mellifera?

And Apis Cerana,athough that is Jacobsoni as well,not sure about Dorsata.

 

[Finman]

.
It is like Nosema cerana, which jumped to mellifera from Apis cerana.

There are too parasitic bumblebees, which uses others specie's hives like cuckoo.
In Finland we have 10 parasitic bumble species. Red text http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loiskimalaiset

There are in South Africa a honeybee race which concures European beehives like a parasite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apis_mellifera_capensis

In USA A. mellifera scutellata has a habit to conquer European honeybee hives and they will be changed to real scutellata hives.