The honey bee mite Tropilaelaps mercedesae can feed on paper wasp brood: Preliminary laboratory evidence

Tropilaelaps mercedesae is an emerging parasite of honey bees, but how do Tropilaelaps mites survive on native hosts when these bees swarm and abscond? Although occasional associations with non-Apis hymenopterans have been reported, they have never been tested experimentally. We exposed larvae of the bumble bee Bombus terrestris and the paper wasp Polistes dominula (n = 10 per species) to five adult female T. mercedesae each and monitored mite survival for up to 120 h. Live mites were recorded for up to 108 h on P. dominula and 36 h on B. terrestris, and mite survival was longer on P. dominula (larva-level hazard ratio = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.25-0.79). No feeding-associated lesions were detected on B. terrestris larvae or the unexposed controls, whereas feeding-associated lesions were found on all ten exposed P. dominula larvae (2-39 per larva) and on the pupal cuticle of one individual after larval-pupal metamorphosis. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that T. mercedesae can feed on P. dominula brood under laboratory conditions. These results suggest that transient interactions with non-Apis hymenopterans deserve further investigation, particularly in relation to the persistence and reinfestation dynamics of Tropilaelaps populations associated with migratory Apis dorsata.