Otago University Emeritus professor Alison Mercer worked with the team on the study. [Bees] have a fantastic sense of smell, she told
Morning Report, adding they needed to know the smell of different flowers to be able to find food. They use their sense of smell extensively inside the hive because . the hive is dark, so they re feeling their way around. The adult Varroa mites are sneaky , Mercer said. They camouflage themselves by making their body cuticles smell just like that of the bees and their host colony. She said the research team was surprised that the bees could use their sense of smell to detect the mites; calling it Varroa-sensitive hygiene behaviour (VSH).
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