I pull these stories from a database with limited access, so I can't just
post a link and a headline for list members.

Scientists seek demise of bee parasite
Monday, May 22, 2000
By Associated Press
   As bee trucks arrive to pollinate Maine's wild blueberry crops, scientists
are looking for new ways to control a tiny parasite that has been killing
honeybees for more than a decade.
   The bloodsucking varroa mite, together with another mite, has nearly wiped
out honeybees in the wild and its growing resistance to chemicals has made
heavier losses a fact of life in colonies maintained by beekeepers.
   That means the search is growing more urgent for new ways to control the
tricky and unpredictable parasite, which was blamed for killing off about
half of Maine's hives last winter.
   "If you don't have a chemical that will kill them, you're out of business.
The mites will take over the hive," said David Hackenberg, a Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, beekeeper who returned last week from delivering bees to Jasper
Wyman & Son, one of Maine's largest wild blueberry producers.
   The varroa mite turned up in Maine in 1987 in bees that were imported from
Florida, where the mite made its first appearance that year.
   The mite, with some help from an even tinier villain known as the tracheal
mite, has wiped out an estimated 90 percent of wild honeybees in the United
States, said Bob Danka, a research entomologist for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
   The varroa mite, about the size of the head of a pin, attaches to a bee
larva after growing within a sealed-up cell in a bee colony. Then it spreads
to the rest of the colony, transmitting viruses and bacteria as it goes. The
tracheal mite sucks the blood of an adult honey bee from within its breathing
tubes.
Because of the die-off, honeybees have virtually disappeared from playgrounds
and backyards across the United States.
   The survival of commercial honeybee operations has depended largely on the
vigilance of the beekeepers and a chemical called fluvalinate, which is
marketed under the name Apistan.
   But beekeepers noticed a growing resistance in the mid-1990s.
   "I've had calls from a number of people, commercial beekeepers, who lost a
thousand hives or more because the treatments gave out," said Troy Fore,
executive director of the American Beekeeping Federation in Jesup, Georgia.
   Now, many beekeepers like Hackenberg have turned to the insecticide
Coumaphos, marketed by Bayer Corp. under the name CheckMite. But not all
beekeepers are following suit and losses are mounting, said Nick Calderone,
an entomology professor at Cornell University.
    CheckMite is being authorized year by year while the Environmental
Protection Agency reviews its safety.
   Hackenberg, a former president of the American Beekeeping Federation, said
more insecticides will be needed eventually. "We need two chemicals or three
chemicals, so we can rotate them all," he said.
   Other solutions are in the works. USDA is selling breeder bees from
eastern Russia that are genetically resistant to the varroa mite, to breed
with bees in the United States.
   Scientists also are studying the use of new chemicals such as formic acid,
along with better management practices, Calderone said.
   Some growers have experimented with other species including bumblebees,
but honeybees are widely preferred because they can pollinate many different
crops, said Hachiro Shimanuki, a research microbiologist at the USDA bee
research laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland.