MARCH | APRIL 2015
Almond Facts
39
suffered. The next year, he made the decision to put his
bees in cold storage prior to almonds. At first worried about
the natural buildup of carbon dioxide by the millions of
bees, he found his bees the next year to be of excellent
quality, with fewer losses. Olson has now enlisted the help
of Drs. Steve Sheppard and Brandon Hopkins, Washington
State University (WSU) to manipulate the colony storage
environment with CO2 in an effort to identify the optimum
level to possibly kill Varroa mites, while not otherwise
affecting the honey bee.
Also at WSU, Sheppard and Hopkins are experimenting
with mushroom extracts and their ability to impact viruses
vectored by the Varroa mite. One particular fungus,
Metarhizium anisopliae
, possesses the ability to kill insects. With
some careful work, it may be possible this fungus will kill the
Varroa mite, but leave the honey bee alive and healthy.
At the University of
Minnesota, Dr. Marla
Spivak is working with
Eltopia, an agricultural
innovations firm, on
“MiteNot,” a pesticide-
free method to remove
Varroa from honey bee
colonies using a circuit
board that applies heat
at a specific temperature
and time to sterilize
mites. The “MiteNot”
circuit board is placed on
a hive frame and covered
in wax, appearing like
a standard frame of
honeycomb. Beekeepers
would replace one frame
within a bee hive with
this reusable wax covered
compostable circuit
board. With more testing to be performed in the near term,
this product is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2015.
Prior to the introduction of Varroa mite into the U.S.,
average beekeeper colony losses were about 10 percent.
With the advent of Varroa, colony losses quickly became
15 percent. Since 2006, colony losses have averaged 30
percent. “Suppose you have the flu, you’re starving, you
have to walk two miles for food, and there’s a tick the
size of a rabbit battened onto your neck” said Dr. Marla
Spivak, in describing the presence of mites to already
stressed bees.
With a lot of hard work, we can decrease these colony
losses and get the nation’s bees healthy again. Combating
Varroa is a logical target. Project Apis m., our many
partners, the USDA and our scientists in the bee
community, other disciplines and around the world will
solve this problem — hopefully before September, 2017!
We don’t want a Varroa anniversary party here!
Relative size of Varroa mite
compared to a human (photo by
Christi Heintz at Bayer Bee Care
Center, Raleigh, NC)
