Hi all

This time of year thoughts turn to the problem of mite dispersal. It is not clear how varroa is able to disperse so rapidly, but there was interest in this topic early on. This is from 

1990: 



> mites are transferred from hive to hive with the movement of bees between hives; they are capable of using flowers as way-stations; and further, they are also able to live on honeybee predators (e.g. wasps ), and possibly travel from hive to hive on them. Cuckoo bumble bees (Psithyrus spp.), social parasites of bumble bees, are known to enter honeybee hives12• Kevan (unpublished) has collected several Psithyrus at a time in dead-bee traps on honeybee hives in southern Ontario. Thus, cuckoo bumble bees could act as vectors of the mite between honeybee hives and colonies of Bombus spp.



Kevan, Peter G., Terence M. Laverty, and Harold A. Denmark. "Association of Varroa jacobsoni with organisms other than honeybees and implications for its dispersal." Bee World 71.3 (1990): 119-121.



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