I’m grateful to my fellow blogger narhvalur for pointing out this article about how the honey bee (Apis mellifera) seems to fight back against the Varroa mite (Varroa destructor).
V. destructor lives down to its scary name. It’s associated with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD is one of the reasons why the United Nations (UN) is concerned about pollinators.
[Edit] Here’s more about V. destructor. Apparently, this little mite isn’t so little if you’re a bee. It’s 2mm long. As Stephen Martin at Sheffield University says, ‘It’s like us humans having a small monkey on our back all the time… It doesn’t kill the bees straight off but it passes disease and viruses which shorten the bee’s lifespan. The colonies then collapse during Winter.’
