The Varroa Mite

Life cycle of the Varroa Mite

The varroa mite enters the brood cell generally 15-20 hours before the cell is capped.

The mite then crawls down between the larvae and the cell wall and embeds itself in the brood food.

The varroa mite will turn itself upside down and breath through a tube while it is in the food and as soon as the larvae has eaten all of the brood food, the mite is freed allowing the parasite to take its first blood feed from the pre-pupae bee.

This usually takes place around the tenth day of the honey bee’s development and at around the same time the varroa mite lays its first egg.

The first egg laid by the varroa mite is male, and the remaining eggs which she lays at 30 hour intervals are female.

Varroa mite defecate frequently in the cells and the faeces have a whitish appearance.

The first male varroa egg will usually hatch around day 12.

After 48 hours, they become eight-legged protonymphs which, after feeding on the bee larva, moult into a deutonymph.

Three days later, the last moult to an adult occurs and approximately twenty-four hours later the mites mate inside the capped honey bee brood cell.

The males die soon after copulation in the brood cell and the female mites emerge to begin the cycle again.

When the adult bee chews the cap off to emerge the adult mother varroa mite and any of her mature daughters leave the cell.

Fortunately, their survival rate is only just over one per cell, the rest die in the cell.