Honey Bees V. Vampire Mites

The fight is on for one-third of the food we eat – and it is mostly the foods that make our eating so enjoyable – fruits, nuts, vegetables, spices and herbs. On one side is a ferocious vampire mite, on the other side is human ingenuity. The battleground is Apis mellifera – the Western Honeybee.  This fight leads us to ask: Can human ingenuity save the honey bee and our food?

The fight is between a ferocious vampire mite that plants itself on the bodies of honey bees and literally sucks the life out of them, and the human ingenuity that tries to prevent this depredation.  In a sense, the fight is similar to that of a farmer who must find a way to keep the fox out of the hen house. Only these hens are the honey bees that provide for one-third of the food we eat.

It appears as though the Verroa mite is winning the fight, as the population of American honey bees is in a state of historic collapse.  Though there are a number of reasons why this year has been so devastating, one of the big reasons is that the Verroa mite has developed a resistance to one of the principal weapons humans have used to control them, the miticide Amitraz.

Lacking an effective defense, there is nothing to stop the Verroa mite from getting into the hive and sucking the life out of our honey bee food chain.  And so, the fox is in the hen house! What to do? Either we humans come upwith a new miticide that will hold the line until the Verroa mite becomes resistant again, or….

But wait… Maybe there is something else we could do.  Maybe, if we are really ingenious, we can breed a better bee, one that is smart enough, and strong enough, to fight off the mighty mite on its own.  And so we ask: Can human ingenuity save the honey bee, and our food?

Tune in here, for the syndicated Michael Olson Food Chain Radio Show #1400 September 27, 2025 Saturday 9AM Pacific