Beekeepers:
Mats Andersson asks if "The theory is that varroa mites will never go into
a queen cell" is a safe assumption.  In Honey Bee Pests, Predators, &
Diseases David De Jong writes: "Because V. Jacobsoni does not attack honey
bee queens, queens theoretically can be transported safely..." In a paper
at the Bee Master's Course at Simon Fraser U. last March Stephen Pernal
writes that queen cells are usually not infested by mites. Last summer I
raised a few queens here in Anchorage by elevating eggs, brood, and nurse
bees above a double screen over some hives. The hives did have varroa
present. Two newly emerged queens each had a varroa mite on their thorax.
Were the mites present in the queen cells? Was there a shortage of young
nurse bees and the new queens just happened by at an opportune time for the
mites? I don't know. The queens looked healthy enough. I used a small piece
of wood and pushed the mites off the queens and didn't see mites on them
again. However, the queens that had been mite infested disappeared from the
the nucs within about a month or so.
Regards,
Dick