Distance between honey bee Apis mellifera colonies regulates populations of Varroa destructor at a landscape scale

Abstract

. We set up 15 apiaries, each consisting of two colonies. Each apiary pair was assigned an inter-colony distance of 0, 10, or 100 m. Colonies were rendered nearly mite-free, then one colony in each pair was seeded with 300 female mites (mite-donor colony), while the other remained uninoculated (mite-recipient colony). After four months of monitoring, a whole model analysis showed that apiaries in which colonies were spaced 100 m apart contained lower average mite numbers than 0 m or 10 m apiaries. There were interactions among colony type, distance, and sampling date; however, when there were significant differences mite numbers were always lower in 100 m apiaries than 10 m apiaries. These findings pose the possibility that Varroa populations are resource regulated at a landscape scale: near-neighbor colonies constitute reproductive resource for mites in the form of additional bee brood.