Laura Brettell and Stephen Martin along with long time collaborators in at the Universities of Hawaii and Minnesota have published a new paper summarising what they’ve learnt from 17 years’ research on Hawaiian honeybees.
Over that time, they saw the parasitic Varroa mite arrive in Hawaii, and cause massive numbers of honey bee colonies to die, but over time things have improved for bees and beekeepers. Now Varroa (and the viruses it spreads) are kept under control, either through chemical treatments, or, in the case of one island, through varroa resistant bees who keep the mite under control themselves.
Read the paper here.
