Varroa mites and their effect on honey bees

The care of honey bees requires understanding of the varroa mite and how it can affect an individual bee as well as its’ colony. To address this parasite and other apiary care topics, Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM, professor of zoological medicine at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine in Athens, presented a series of educational session in a bee symposium at the 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) presented by the North American Veterinary Community, on Sunday, January 26. Mayer further discussed parasite awareness and control of the varroa mite in a dvm360 interview at VMX.

The following is a transcript of the video:

Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM: If you talk to a beekeeper, if you want to get involved in in honey bee health topics, you need to be aware of what we call ‘public enemy No. 1’: the Varroa mite. Unfortunately, the Varroa is more or less everywhere where honey bees are and they're probably a really big contributor to what has been termed earlier on as colony collapse disorder. So basically, [contributing] to the mystery of the massive die off of honey bees kept in captivity or managed honey bee colonies. And this happens on a multitude of issues.

So, one of the big issues is that while the bee is affected by the parasitic function of the Varroa mite—the Varroa mite, while it's feasting on the body—it also introduces a lot of viruses and other pathogens to the honey bee. Most notably is a virus called deformed wing virus, which actually doesn't allow the bee to fly anymore, and therefore it can't provide any pollination services. But there's another slew of viruses that affect them too. And even if they survive and they can't fly and do stuff, it's just, it's just a horrible parasitic situation on that individual bee. And then if we add this all up, a horrible situation for the colony, for the population. So everybody that works with honey bees needs to be aware that this is basically our main, main enemy that we got the fight.

There's a lot of different drugs and regiments out there to try to control [the Varroa mite]. We can't really eradicate the Varroa mite anymore. It's established well everywhere, and [as of], I think, 2 years ago, it now actually established also in Australia. Australia [had] managed to avoid that. I think 2 years ago now, Australia has it, and it's going to spread like a wildfire. And now the beekeepers in Australia face exactly the same problem as beekeepers all over the world. And so this is a huge topic that one needs to just be aware of.