Kolkata: A young scientist from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) has detected an invasive destructive species — Small Hive Beetle (SHB) Aethina tumida — in an apiary at Amdanga, in North 24-Parganas that can pose a serious threat to India’s honey bee population and apiculture industry.
The scientist Jhikmik Dasgupta’s findings were published in the ‘Journal of Environment and Sociobiology’, Kolkata. SHB causes devastating impact on the honey production and economic loss of the beekeeping industry by rendering the honey unpalatable and unfit for human consumption. Eventually, its high reproducibility and dispersibility creates worrying impact on the apiculture trade as well as associated livelihood.
The adult SHBs are about 5-7 mm long, oval-shaped and reddish-brown in colour. The females generally enter into the beehives through cracks and crevices to lay eggs. After hatching of eggs, the young larvae feed on the stored pollen, honey, honey bee eggs and defecate in honey combs.
The SHB, classified as an “Invasive Alien Species,” may be considered as ‘rouges’ in a society that can destroy harmonious and healthy societal set-up. These species have become a major threat to biodiversity loss of an area as well as increasing the number of endangered native species.
The World Organisation of Animal Health (OIE, 2013) indicated SHB infestation as ‘Disease notifiable’. After its discovery in sub-Saharan Africa in 1867, invasions were noticed in the United States (1999), New South Wales, Australia (2002), Canada 2007), Caribbean Islands (2010), Brazil of South America (2015), Philippines in Asia (2016), China and South Korea (2017). Eventually, India too got affected. It is apprehended that the beetle can spread over wider areas of the country due to favourable eco-climatic conditions.
Dasgupta has been studying the biological features of these beetles in the laboratory with the hope of framing a ‘biosecurity’ measure against the negative impacts of this terror beetle.