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Authors: Hannah Nordhaus
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mite been found in one of his hives just a few years before, the state of California would have insisted that he kill his entire outfit, poisoning each colony and burning the equipment in which his bees lived. But the state had given up on that, because it was expensive and because, although the policy had wiped out beekeepers left and right, it had done nothing to stanch the mite’s spread.
The letters didn’t impart any earth-shattering news. Miller already knew he had mites. But the fact that the agriculture authorities—ostensibly impartial third parties—in two states had publicly declared him infested was, he says, “like a stain.” Miller was once a “prideful” beekeeper. Other people’s outfits might suffer from foulbrood and varroa mites, but Miller’s were always clean, well tended, expertly managed. He was, he says, in a “delusional state of self-righteousness”—under the acute misperception that he was too good a beekeeper to fall prey to such pitfalls as the varroa mite. But the mite didn’t distinguish between good and bad beekeepers. It infested every hive it encountered, riding on the backs of bees from failing hives to infect healthy ones. Although the mite, which is the size of the head of a pin, might be small enough to overlook if you weren’t terribly observant, its oversized effects were hard to ignore. “This varroa mite,” says Miller, “swaggers like a colossus across beekeeping in North America.”
T HE VARROA MITE IS A BLOODRED-TO-BROWN, TICK-SHAPED creature, about 1.8 millimeters long and 2 millimeters wide. It has eight legs, a hairy, shiny dark shell, and a sharp, two-pronged tongue designed to pierce a bee’s exoskeleton and suck its hemolymph—what serves as blood in bees, who don’t have circulatory systems, hearts, arteries, and veins as we understand them, but rather blood-like tissue that flows osmotically between body segments. The mites jump onto adult bees like fleas onto dogs, in an instant, and set up camp on the bees’ backs or between their abdominal plates, where they are nearly impossible to spot. A pregnant foundress makes the first foray into a colony. She rides into a hive on an unwitting adult bee and jumps into a cell destined to raise the incubating bees—the brood—that will become the hive’s next generation. She times it perfectly, burying herself in the bottom of the cell during the period of larval feeding, before the worker bees cap the cells with wax to allow the larvae to incubate. Once the brood cell is capped, it is impossible for either bees or humans to spot or smell a varroa mite. The only way to find one is to open the cell, which kills the baby bee.
Ensconced now in the cell, the foundress hunkers down and lays four to six eggs—one male, the rest female—and after five to eight days the eggs hatch into juvenile mites, which feed on the hemolymph of the bee larvae and pupae. The mites mate, then emerge with the immature bee to colonize a new cell. Bees whose brood cells hosted mites often emerge damaged and ill, surviving only hours, rather than weeks. They suffer a variety of disabling defects—crumpled or disjointed wings, undeveloped glands, shortened abdomens, insufficient proteins, reduced sperm quality. They also weigh less than healthy bees, and fly less often. The sickest ones are quickly evicted from the hive, where they crawl helplessly at the base until they die. With all the disabling viruses mites bring along with them, even a single mite can cut an adult bee’s life span by as much as half. When mite populations grow, they sap the strength and vigor from entire hives.
The varroa infestation is, cruelly, a malady of prosperity. The mite preys most effectively on colonies that are thriving. A beehive’s population peaks in the middle of July, when honey flows are at their strongest and a queen can lay thousands of eggs a day. Miller calculates that on July 16, a healthy colony may house almost 80,000 bees—which
The letters didn’t impart any earth-shattering news. Miller already knew he had mites. But the fact that the agriculture authorities—ostensibly impartial third parties—in two states had publicly declared him infested was, he says, “like a stain.” Miller was once a “prideful” beekeeper. Other people’s outfits might suffer from foulbrood and varroa mites, but Miller’s were always clean, well tended, expertly managed. He was, he says, in a “delusional state of self-righteousness”—under the acute misperception that he was too good a beekeeper to fall prey to such pitfalls as the varroa mite. But the mite didn’t distinguish between good and bad beekeepers. It infested every hive it encountered, riding on the backs of bees from failing hives to infect healthy ones. Although the mite, which is the size of the head of a pin, might be small enough to overlook if you weren’t terribly observant, its oversized effects were hard to ignore. “This varroa mite,” says Miller, “swaggers like a colossus across beekeeping in North America.”
T HE VARROA MITE IS A BLOODRED-TO-BROWN, TICK-SHAPED creature, about 1.8 millimeters long and 2 millimeters wide. It has eight legs, a hairy, shiny dark shell, and a sharp, two-pronged tongue designed to pierce a bee’s exoskeleton and suck its hemolymph—what serves as blood in bees, who don’t have circulatory systems, hearts, arteries, and veins as we understand them, but rather blood-like tissue that flows osmotically between body segments. The mites jump onto adult bees like fleas onto dogs, in an instant, and set up camp on the bees’ backs or between their abdominal plates, where they are nearly impossible to spot. A pregnant foundress makes the first foray into a colony. She rides into a hive on an unwitting adult bee and jumps into a cell destined to raise the incubating bees—the brood—that will become the hive’s next generation. She times it perfectly, burying herself in the bottom of the cell during the period of larval feeding, before the worker bees cap the cells with wax to allow the larvae to incubate. Once the brood cell is capped, it is impossible for either bees or humans to spot or smell a varroa mite. The only way to find one is to open the cell, which kills the baby bee.
Ensconced now in the cell, the foundress hunkers down and lays four to six eggs—one male, the rest female—and after five to eight days the eggs hatch into juvenile mites, which feed on the hemolymph of the bee larvae and pupae. The mites mate, then emerge with the immature bee to colonize a new cell. Bees whose brood cells hosted mites often emerge damaged and ill, surviving only hours, rather than weeks. They suffer a variety of disabling defects—crumpled or disjointed wings, undeveloped glands, shortened abdomens, insufficient proteins, reduced sperm quality. They also weigh less than healthy bees, and fly less often. The sickest ones are quickly evicted from the hive, where they crawl helplessly at the base until they die. With all the disabling viruses mites bring along with them, even a single mite can cut an adult bee’s life span by as much as half. When mite populations grow, they sap the strength and vigor from entire hives.
The varroa infestation is, cruelly, a malady of prosperity. The mite preys most effectively on colonies that are thriving. A beehive’s population peaks in the middle of July, when honey flows are at their strongest and a queen can lay thousands of eggs a day. Miller calculates that on July 16, a healthy colony may house almost 80,000 bees—which
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