To bee or not to bee, mite be the problem

Source: Mites transmitting viruses that kill bee colonies | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mite-related colony loss began 30 years ago when the varroa mite made its first appearance in the U.S. Over the next decade, the mite, along with a cocktail of viruses, nutritional deficiencies, agricultural and lawn pesticides and habitat loss, wiped out most of the wild bee colonies in much of the U.S., and contributed to the number of managed honey bee colonies in the state dropping from about 75,000 in 1988 to under 30,000 in 2002.

Although the number of beekeepers and colonies are on the rise again in Pennsylvania, and throughout the U.S., varroa remains a central concern. Last weekend, more than two dozen beekeepers attended the Beaver Valley Area Beekeepers Association two-day workshop in Baden that began with a two-and-a-half hour discussion about the mighty mites and how to control them.
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Then, he said, in 1997, Greg Hunt and other entomologists at Purdue University discovered that a small percentage of bees attack the mites and chew their legs off, killing them.

“Only about 3 percent of bees exhibited that chewing behavior,” Mr. Wells said. “But through a breeding program that uses bee stock from Europe where varroa was introduced 15 years earlier than it was in the U.S., that behavior was boosted to 50 percent and then 75 to 80 percent. It seems the bees are evolving.”

He said the chewing bees were dubbed “Purdue anklebiters,” even though mites don’t have ankles, and the name attracted much needed attention to the problem among beekeepers.​

I am relieved.

Bob Wilson