Jan 15, 2016

Scientists, beekeepers breed mite-fighting bees

A co-op of beekeepers are working with scientists to breed bees with a specific genetic trait to combat the varroa mite. The typical treatment method for mites is spraying bees with low-dose insecticides, but beekeepers run the risk of killing their bees as well.

Beekeepef Jeff Berta had one of his queen bees, No. 18, artificially inseminated by researchers at Purdue University who were raising bees with a mite-fighting grooming behavior.

Here’s more from NPR:

“The bees will take the mite and they will bite the legs and will chew on the mite,” Berta says. “And if they bite a leg off of the mite, the mite will bleed to death. 

With every egg No. 18 lays, she passes on those leg-biting behaviors — making a colony that can rid itself of mites naturally, with no help from pesticides. 

Berta and the co-op of beekeepers happily give eggs from their best colonies to their neighbors and swap queens to try out new genetics. It’s all part of shifting the paradigm from a system where beekeepers simply buy new bees every year to a lasting neighborhood of bees that can slowly create real survivors.