Erika Plettner gestures towards beehives surrounded by tall, dry grasses as she explains the multiple pressures facing honeybees worldwide.
Pesticides, pathogens and the effects of climate change are putting bees and their role as pollinators of the world’s food crops in peril, she says.Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Ottawa SUN, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc.
The bees involved in the experiment fly in and out of their hives as Plettner explains that the researchers don’t yet understand exactly how the compound works. The researchers place a sheet of sticky paper beneath the hives to collect the dead mites for analysis in their lab, she said. The varroa mite originally parasitized honeybees in Asia before spreading to Afro-European honeybee populations about 100 years ago, she said.
“Every once in a while, you get a hive that is quite resistant to the mite, and this is a subject of very intensive research and bee breeding efforts.” It’s especially important to mitigate varroa mite infestations given the range of environmental pressures bees are facing, Plettner said.Article content
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