New experimental data on use of rotenone as an acaricide for control of Varroa destructor in honey bee colonies.

Three slow release experimental rotenone formulations were tested to evaluate their effectiveness against Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman in colonies with sealed brood and to determine whether they left residues in honey and bees wax: we evaluated cardboard strip containing 1 g rotenone and two types of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) strips containing 1 (high-dose) and 0.5 (low-dose) g of rotenone, respectively. In general, the efficacy of the treatments, expressed as percentage of mite mortality, was highly variable in all treatment groups (range, 0-96.8%). The highest effectiveness was obtained with the high-dose-PVC strips, which caused an average percentage of mortality ranging between 47 and 69% in the adult bees and sealed brood, respectively. At the end of the treatment, rotenone residues ranged between 0.03 and 0.06 and 1.5-144.0 mg/kg in honey and wax, respectively. Rotenone residues in wax were still detectable 4 mo after the treatment period, whereas no residues were found in honey. The higher residues content and persistence recorded in wax samples, was probably due to the lipophilic nature of rotenone. A reduction in the amount of adults was recorded for the group treated with high-dose-PVC strips compared with the untreated colonies. Toxicological risks connected with the use of rotenone and the low maximum level recently fixed by European legislation (0.01 mg/kg) suggest that rotenone is not a good candidate for reducing varroa populations in honey bee colonies.