Honeybees that live in the wild have better resistance to the mites that wreak havoc in commercial colonies, researchers in California found.
A study at the University of California, Riverside, confirmed that hybrid honeybees found in natural and urban settings in Southern California aren’t infected as heavily by varroa mites, which spread diseases that can wipe out commercially raised bees.
The findings, published in the March 27 issue of the journal Scientific Reports, could provide beekeepers with an additional tool against the parasites — one of many factors in the colony collapses that are leaving producers with losses of as much as 50 percent a year.
“We found that Californian hybrid honey bee colonies consistently had lower mite infestation rates compared to colonies headed by queens from a commercial stock,” researchers at UCR’s Center for Integrative Bee Research said in the study.
