Mite Fighters

One tiny mite has caused more honey bee colony deaths than any other single threat in modern beekeeping history, and it's in nearly every managed hive on the planet right now.

In this episode, we dig into Varroa destructor: what it actually does inside a colony, why the chemical treatments we've relied on for decades are starting to fail, and why that failure has made one remarkable bee behavior so important. It's called Varroa-Sensitive Hygiene, and it's exactly what it sounds like.

Some bees have developed the ability to detect, uncap, and remove mite-infested cells before the mite can reproduce. We'll explore how researchers at the USDA discovered and bred for this trait, what it looks like in real colonies, and the honest tradeoffs that come with it.