Table 1.

Efficacy of common treatments used to control Varroa destructor in Apis mellifera colonies

Level	Type	Treatment	Efficacy			References
			High	Moderate	Low
Cultural Controls	Resistant Lines	Minnesota Hygienic Bees		X		Spivak and Reuter 2001b; Ibrahim et al. 2007; Danka et al. 2013
		Russian Honey Bees		X		Ward et al, 2008; Danka et al. 2012; Kirrane et al. 2018; Rinderer et al. 2014a
		Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH)		X		Harbo and Harris 2001; Delaplane et al. 2005; Ibrahim and Spivak 2006; Harris 2007
		Indiana “mite-biter”		X§		Morfin et al. 2020
		POL-line Hygienic			X§	Danka et al. 2016
		Saskatraz		X§		Robertson et al. 2014; 2020
	Brood Interruption	Queen Caging		X		Lodesani et al. 2014; Giacomelli et al. 2016; Gregorc et al. 2017; Büchler et al. 2020; Jack et al. 2020a
	Hive Equipment	Small Cell Foundation			X	Ellis et al. 2009a; Berry et al. 2010; Coffey et al. 2010; Saucy 2014
Mechanical Controls	Hive Equipment	Screened Bottom Boards			X	Ellis et al. 2001; Rinderer et al. 2003; Harbo and Harris 2004; Delaplane et al. 2005
	Drone Removal	Drone Brood Trapping	X			Calis et al. 1999; Wilkinson and Smith 2002; Calderone 2005; Wantuch and Tarpy 2009
	Hyperthermia	Thermovar device	X§			Goras et al. 2015
		Mite-Zapper device	X§			Huang 2001
	Dislodging Mites	Powdered Sugar			X	Fakhimzadeh 2001; Asha and Sharma 2009; Ellis et al. 2009b; Berry et al. 2012; Stevanovic et al. 2012
Biological Controls	Entomo-pathogenic Fungi	Beauveria bassiana		X§		Sewify et al. 2015; Sinia and Guzman-Novoa 2018
		Metarhizium anisopliae		X§		Kanga et al. 2003; Sinia and Guzman-Novoa 2018
	Predators	Pseudoscorpians			X	Thapa et al. 2013
		Stratiolaelaps scimitus			X	Rangel and Ward 2018; Rondeau et al. 2019
	Bacteria (laboratory studies only)	Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)		X§		Alquisira-Ramírez et al. 2014
		Serratia marcescens		X§		Tu et al. 2010
Chemical Controls	Natural “Soft”	Formic acid	X			Satta et al. 2005; Vandervalk et al. 2014; Giusti et al. 2017; Pietropaoli and Formato 2019
		Oxalic acid	X			Rademacher and Harz 2006; Al Toufailia et al. 2015; Gregorc et al. 2016; Jack et al. 2021
		Thymol (essential oil)		X		Melathopoulos and Gates 2003; Gregorc and Planinc 2012; Vandervalk et al. 2014; Giacomelli et al. 2016
		Hop beta acids		X		DeGrandi-Hoffman et al. 2012; Vandervalk et al. 2014; Rademacher et al. 2015; Gregorc et al. 2018
	Synthetic “Hard”	Amitraz (formamidine)	X*			Vandervalk et al. 2014; Al Naggar et al. 2015; Gregorc et al. 2018; Jack et al. 2020a
		Coumaphos (organophosphate)			X*	Spreafico et al. 2001; Pettis et al. 2004; Maggi et al. 2009; Haber et al. 2019
		Fluvalinate (pyrethroid)			X*	Cabras et al. 1997; Calderone 1999; Mozes-Koch et al. 2000; Thompson et al. 2002
		Flumethrin (pyrethroid)	X*			Smodiš Škerl et al. 2011; Blacquière et al. 2017; Olmstead et al. 2019

Treatment efficacy may not be the same in all regions of the world; however, the three categories of effectiveness were established by pooling the results found in the literature review. A low rating indicates that literature reported efficacy of a given strategy/control ranges between 0 and 24% efficacy. A moderate rating indicates literature reported efficacies between 25 and 75%. A high rating indicates literature reported efficacies between 76 and 100%.

§ Indicates that there is a lack of scientific literature for this treatment and caution should be exercised before use.

*Varroa has demonstrated some level of resistance to the active ingredient.