Infestation of honey bees by tracheal mites, <i>Acarapis woodi</i>, in Japan

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  • 日本におけるミツバチのアカリンダニ寄生の現状
  • ニホン ニ オケル ミツバチ ノ アカリンダニ キセイ ノ ゲンジョウ
  • Infestation of honey bees by tracheal mites, Acarapis woodi, in Japan

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Abstract

Acarapis woodi (Rennie) is a tracheal mite of honeybees. The mites feed on bee haemolymph in the trachea and air sacs of adult honeybees. An infestation of these mites causes serious damage to bee colonies. The distribution of A. woodi mites among colonies of European honeybees, Apis mellifera, is worldwide, from Europe to South and North America. The first record of an infestation of A. woodi on A. mellifera in Japan was in 2010. In the same year, the infestation of Japanese native honeybees, Apis cerana japonica, by the mites was also recorded. Thereafter, only four records of A. woodi infestations among Japanese honeybees were issued by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and no further record of A. woodi infestations among European honeybees was reported until 2012. The number of records of A. woodi infestations seems much smaller than that of the actual infestations. To determine the accurate distribution of A. woodi in Japan, I investigated more than 350 colonies of Japanese honey bees and 50 colonies of European honey bees. The diagnosis of parasitic mite infestation was based on the dissection of the honeybees under a microscope. Mite-infested honeybees were found in Japanese honeybee colonies collected in middle and east Japan. No infestation was found in European honeybees. The reason why the infestation of European honeybees is much lower than that of Japanese honeybees is now under investigation, in part to identify ways to control parasitic mites on Japanese honeybees.

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