59-05-032 Proceeding

364 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress NON-REPRODUCTION OF THE ECTOPARASITIC MITE, TROPILAELAPS MERCEDESAE ANDERSON & MORGAN (ACARI: LAELAPIDAE) , IN APIS DORSATA FABRICIUS IN THAILAND Boonmee Kavinseksan Biology Program, Department of Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University Abstract : Twenty-one Apis dorsata colonies were used to investigate the rate of Tropilaelaps mercedesae non-reproduction in brood cells and the number of progeny produced by reproductive mites (or fecundity). A. dorsata brood combs were collected from different locations in Thailand betweenMarch 2014 and February 2015. Brood cells containing pupae with dark brown eyes and a lightly pigmented thorax or older were opened and examined. Only cells that had been invaded by a single foundress female mite were scored for the presence of non-reproductive foundress mites and the fecundity of reproductive foundress mites. Mites were scored as non-reproductive when either they did not lay eggs or the progeny that were present were too young to mature before the host bee emerged from its cell. The average percentage of non-reproductive mites on the worker pupae was 64.4%. Overall, a reproductive T. mercedesae produced 1.3 progeny. About 71.7% of the reproductive mites produced 1 female progeny, 24.2% produced 2 and, 4.1% produced 3 female progeny. Keywords: Tropilaelaps mercedesae/Apis dorsata /non-reproduction/Laelapidae/fecundity/ Thailand Introduction Tropilaelaps mercedesae Anderson & Morgan (Acari: Laelapidae) feeds on haemolymph of bees (Kitprasert, 1984; Delfinado-Baker et al., 1992; Anderson and Morgan, 2007). This mite is a much more serious pest of Apis mellifera Linnaeus than it is on its natural host A. dorsata Fabricius (Wongsiri et al., 1989). A. dorsata , a native honeybee species of Southeast Asia, lives in the open, in single comb nests hanging high on cliffs, limbs or branches of trees, eaves and ledges of human buildings (Ruttner, 1988; Wongsiri et al., 1996, 1989). T. mercedesae populations cannot grow to a very harmful level in A. dorsata colonies because of effective defensemechanisms against of this bee species. Known mechanisms include colony migrations, broodless periods, grooming behavior and hygienic behavior (Wongsiri et al., 1989; Burgett and Rossignol, 1990; Rath and Delfinado-Baker, 1990; Koeniger et al., 1993, 2002; Kavinseksan et al., 2003; Woyk et al., 2004; Kavinseksan, 2006, 2011; Khongphinitbunjong et al., 2012). Non-reproduction of mites is one of many characteristics of honeybees that has been associated with resistance to mites (Buchler and Drescher, 1990; Spivak and Reuter, 1998;