Modeling the Influence of Mites on Honey Bee Populations

Modeling the Influence of Mites on Honey Bee Populations

Blog Article

The Varroa destructor mite has been associated with the recent decline fr9577 in honey bee populations.While experimental data are crucial in understanding declines, insights can be gained from models of honey bee populations.We add the influence of the V.destructor mite to our existing honey bee model in order to better understand the impact of mites on honey bee colonies.

Our model is based on differential equations which track the number of bees in each day in the life of the bee and accounts for differences in the survival rates of different air compressor tank bushing bee castes.The model shows that colony survival is sensitive to the hive grooming rate and reproductive rate of mites, which is enhanced in drone capped cells.