The Black Soldier Fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens) was widely distributed throughout Korea. This insect was mainly found in the vicinity of and in cattle sheds, manure sheds, living waste dump grounds, and food waste dump grounds. This fly is a kind of a beneficial fly because BSF adults do not go into houses, they do not regurgitate on human food, they do not bite, bother or pester humans in any way and they are not associated in any way with the transmission of disease. But their greatest attribute lies their ability to eat and digest raw waste. They can devour, for example, a large, raw, Irish potato and others in just a few hours. Unlike many other flies, since the BSF larvae have very powerful mouth parts and digestive enzymes, they can ingest raw waste far more efficiently than any other known species of fly. On this study, to investigate whether feeding strategy of the BSF larvae involves extra-oral digestion or not, and to better understand this process, the salivary glands and a few tissue from the BSF were dissected and subjected to morphological and preliminary enzyme characterization.

Varroa destructor is an ecto-parasite mite and worldwide pest of the honey bee Apis mellifera L. The pyrethroid tau-fluvalinate (Apistan), an acaricide that is tolerated by honey bees, has been used for varroa mite control since the mid 1980s. Even though various resistances to tau-fluvalinate in varroa mites have been reported from Europe, Israel, and USA, the nature of tau-fluvalinate resistance in varroa mites in Korea has never been investigated. To investigate and understand tau-fluvalinate resistance in varroa mites in Korea, we conducted bioassay in several apiaries located different regions in Korea. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the difference of tau-fluvalinate resistances in varroa mites, partial genomic DNA fragments of a voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene from varroa mites were cloned and sequenced, since tau-fluvalinate is known to act on the sodium channels directly. Two novel mutations in sodium channels of varroa mites were present in eight apiaries. Two mutations might be a geographical polymorphism of sodium channel of varroa mites in Korea.