“The bees will take the mite and they will bite the legs and will chew on the mite,” Berta says. “And if they bite a leg off of the mite, the mite will bleed to death. So the bees are actually fighting back. That’s the type of genetic line we’re after right now.”
This behavior was notices in some New Brunswick bees back in 1999 2000 When varra first came in to Canada the government policy was to kill the bees in the hives there was an area across the boarder from Main that mites were being found in every apiary except for one small group of beekeepers. After a couple of years and closer examination of the bottom boards although mites did not show up during a mite check their white bodies were found on the bottom boards due to being dissected by the bees.
