I was a little surprised when reading the latest issue of Bee Culture magazine. It seems that varroa aren't the "vampires" we have been told for the last 20 years. They don't actually drink the bees haemolymph (bee blood). Instead they apparently eat from the bee's fat bodies. What are the "fat bodies"? Well, it took me a 1/2 hour of searching the internet before I found enough information to write even this short explanation. I only found one bee anatomy diagram that showed the "fat bodies" in about 50 diagrams that I looked at. Unfortunately I was not able to copy and paste it into this article.
The "fat bodies" are a layer of cells that act similar to our liver. These cells are distributed throughout the abdomen, but mainly on the floor and roof of the abdomen. Apparently most varroa will attach to the bottom of the bee to get at the "fat bodies". So besides the small size of the varroa the sneaky little devils hide where we won't see them. No wonder everyone says they don't see any varroa on their bees. I certainly am not picking up worker bees to examine their belly. That's simply invites getting stung.
From a beekeeper's standpoint this new information probably won't make much difference in your day to day activities in the short term. The main enemy is still the varroa mite and the viruses that they distribute. This information however may lead to new or different methods of varroa control in the future.
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