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Science Friday

Inside The Race To Save Honeybees From Parasitic Mites

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Life Sciences, Wnyc, Science, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Friday

4.55.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Varroa destructor mites are killing honeybees and their babies at alarming rates.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

There's a tiny mite that's wreaking havoc on bees across the country and it's called

0:07.0

Varroa Destructor.

0:09.5

The name for this parasite is a very transformery sounding name but these mites have earned this name

0:15.2

it's not melodramatic by any means they are incredibly destructive organisms it's Tuesday

0:20.5

April 16th and you're listening to Science Friday.

0:23.2

I'm Cyphry producer Deep Peter Schmidt.

0:29.2

Last year, almost half the honeybee colonies in the US died,

0:32.4

making it the second deadliest year for honey bees on record.

0:35.2

The highly contagious culprit is a tiny mite that makes bees more susceptible to disease and

0:40.8

pesticides, which is not good news for the many important crops that bees pollinate.

0:45.0

Sci-Fi producer Rasha Irriti got a closer look at these mites with an entomologist in Colorado

0:50.0

and brought us this field report.

0:59.0

A few months ago I went out to Colorado and I met Dr. Sammy Ramsey, an entomologist at CU Boulder and his team of B experts. They're working on studying this might so they hopefully one day can take it down.

1:08.0

I met them in this beautiful field nestled among Boulder's rolling hills right off the main road there are

1:14.2

around 15 beehives all lined up next to each other and we were going parasite

1:19.7

hunting. The name for this parasite is a very transformory sounding name but it's actually called

1:26.2

Varroa Destructor so these Varroa Destructor might have earned this name. It's not

1:31.6

melodramatic by any means. They are incredibly

1:34.0

destructive organisms. We lose between a third and half of our bee colonies

1:39.1

like nationally every year. Because of these m mines? The primary driving factor is Varroa Destructor.

1:46.4

There are other things that are going on and I don't want to make it seem like there is a single problem,

1:50.5

it's multi-factorial, but what we do know is that these parasites are at the

...

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