Bees Bite Mites!
My beekeeping father would be tickled to learn that there is a new technique to fight Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder.
You’ve heard that beekeepers are losing their colonies at unexpected rates. Some blame insecticides, some blame weather, but all agree that the blood-sucking Varroa mite is terribly damaging to a hive. The mite weakens bees and makes them susceptible to disease and other stressors.
But now the new weapon: selecting bees that like to bite mites! Beekeepers at Perdue and other spots are selecting queens that like to bite mites and breeding them with drones (males) who have the same urge.
Their bee children like nothing more than chomping a mite, tearing off their legs.
This is the kind of information my Dad would cut out of the newspaper and put in his “amusement box”, alongside Pogo cartoons and Jesse Outlar columns.