Trevor Weatherhead****

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Varroa destructor and V. jacobsoni****

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Reading recent post I thought I should put some background that many would
not know.  I see a lot written about people seeing a different shape and
wonder how much of this is the Monday morning football syndrome.  This was
not the reason why Dr. Denis Anderson made his discovery.****

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Apis cerana Java genotype was introduced to Iran Jaya by the Indonesians as
part of their trans migration program in the 1980’s.  They, of course,
brought, Varroa jacobsoni with them.  There were no A. mellifera on this
side of the border with Papua New Guinea (PNG).  However there were
mellifera in PNG.  As the cerana migrated to these areas, Denis found that
the varroa was not reproducing on the mellifera.  They did the usual thing
like entering the cell just before capping but they, somehow, did not get
the signal to start laying.  Why was this so?  Many were sceptical about
his discovery and some thought the bees might be resistant.****

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So Denis worked from here and it was at Apimondia in Vancouver in 1999 that
he presented his paper calling it destructor.  His later work showed that
there were different varroa on different haplotypes of cerana.****

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We now have the situation where jacobsoni has started to successfully
reproduce on mellifera in PNG.  There is a new researcher, John Roberts,
who is Denis’s protégé, who is working on this “strain” of jacobsoni.  One
of the questions asked and being looked at is can the jacobsoni that is now
reproducing on mellifera, turn around and reproduce again on cerana?****

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All this begs another question.  If destructor and jacobsoni did a switch
to mellifera will other varroa’s and euvarroa’s that currently do not
reproduce on mellifera do so if given enough time and exposure to mellifera?
****

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Trevor Weatherhead****

AUSTRALIA

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