Varroa is a major world-wide pest to Western honey bees (Apis mellifera), causing huge ongoing losses of colonies every year. Conversely, the Eastern honey bee (Apis cerana) is less vulnerable to the mite having existed alongside it over a long evolutionary period. Research conducted during the 1980s and 1990s, shortly after Varroa had spread across the globe, concluded that the Eastern honey bee was less vulnerable because it displayed higher levels of grooming behaviour, brood removal behaviour and mite infertility than its Western counterpart. However, this review on these Varroa resistance traits in A. cerana indicates that there is surprisingly little evidence for these conclusions. This review explores this evidence and discusses the potential flaws in the studies and the gaps that still remain in our knowledge of Varroa resistance traits in A. cerana.

Varroa是西方蜜蜂 ( Apis mellifera )的主要世界性害虫，每年都会造成巨大的蜂群持续损失。相反，东方蜜蜂 ( Apis cerana ) 不太容易受到螨虫的影响，因为它们在很长一段时间内都与它一起存在。在 1980 年代和 1990 年代进行的研究，在瓦螨传播到全球后不久，得出的结论是，东方蜜蜂不那么脆弱，因为它比西方蜜蜂表现出更高水平的梳理行为、育雏行为和螨虫不育。然而，这篇关于A. cerana中这些Varroa抗性特征的综述表明这些结论几乎没有证据。这篇综述探讨了这一证据，并讨论了研究中的潜在缺陷以及我们对 A. cerana 中Varroa抗性特征的了解仍然存在的差距。