This 'Mite' be a Problem

          In 2006, seemingly healthy bees began simply abandoning their hives en masse, never to return. This phenomenon, called colony collapse disorder (or CCD), endangers the livelihood of the beekeeping industry and agriculture today. Many researchers point to crop pesticides, global warming, habitat loss, parasites, disease, and even cell phone signals as potential causes of CCD. Although the cause of CCD remains a mystery, one thing is for certain: parasitic mites are a very real problem for bees and beekeepers around the world. Although mites like Varroa destructor and tracheal mites often don't kill bees directly, they often disable them and render them unable to perform the daily tasks needed to keep a hive healthy.

The Varroa destructor mite.

        Many beekeepers use pesticides (or miticides as they are sometimes called) such as Apistan, Hopguard and thymol in order to reduce or eliminate mite infestations. However, the amount of pesticide that will kill mites isn't much lower than that which can hurt or kill bees. This poses a problem for beekeepers, who are unsure whether they are hurting or helping their hives by applying miticides to them. 
        The objective of my project is to evaluate the consequences of pesticide exposure on colony growth and brood production, forager activity, and colony homeostasis to determine if pesticides are indeed having a detrimental effect on honeybees’ well-being. I intend to monitor the vital signs of two colonies exposed to miticides (with two given blank miticide strips and another two with nothing at all) using temperature, humidity, weight, and CO2 sensors, with the help of William Meikle at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Laboratory in Tucson. I am very excited for my project- if all goes well I will have some neat results. I'm going in on Monday to familiarize myself with the CO2 sensors, and we will be installing the sensors on Wednesday. I will post updates as they happen, but I 'hive' to go now; we'll talk again soon.