Oxalic acid and glycerin strips might help control varroa mite populations, delaying their exponential growth and helping reduce economic losses for beekeepers, but this treatment should be considered as part of an IPM strategy and not a stand-alone method for V. destructor control.

At the individual level bees show reactions to the vibrations; however, at the population level bees seem to cope with the disturbance. As higher amplitudes and additional stress factors might affect the colonies, it seems to be anyways advisable to generally avoid placing bee colonies close to anthropogenic vibrational noise sources.

The results indicate significant shifts in honeybee–crop interactions due to climate change. Northern regions, such as Canada, are expected to see increased interactions, driven by improved habitat suitability at higher latitudes. In contrast, southern and eastern areas, including parts of Mexico and the USA, are projected to experience declines, leaving these regions more susceptible to the loss of critical pollination services. These findings highlight the uneven effects of climate change on pollination services across North America.

We conclude that honey bee colonies are particularly vulnerable to viral infection during the pre-overwintering period, most likely as a result of reduced tolerance to pathogen stress when transitioning from a summer to winter worker population. We further hypothesize that this period of increased vulnerability to viral infection, in correlation with other disease factors such as Varroa mite abundance and available forage, likely contributes to the relatively high overwintering losses experienced by beekeepers.

Sarah Wood, research chair in pollinator health at University of Saskatchewan, has looked at how FASD affects the movements of bees, and now she is looking to see how it may affect bees socially. 

Sweat covers Isaac Barnes’s face under his beekeeper’s veil as he hauls boxes of honeycomb from his hives to his truck. It’s a workout in what feels like a sauna as the late-morning June temperatures rise.