Written by Tom Beedham

Imagine a world where bees are extinct: a world without stings, culturally abandoned apiphobia and, most importantly, a world entirely void of natural food.

That is the world that Canadian author Douglas Coupland presents readers to in his latest take on the future, Generation A. In his book, contact with even a single honeybee warrants abduction by hazmat suited troops and weeks of interrogation and blood sampling. It is undoubtedly a radical interpretation, but for the last three years, honeybees have been dying fast enough to earn the phenomenon the moniker of colony collapse disorder (CCD).

Photo by Rashaad Bhamjee

While perhaps well founded, Coupland’s prophecy might never come to fruition (much to the delight of beekeepers around the world).  With funding from the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture, University of Guelph environmental biology professor Ernesto Guzman believes he’s figured out the problem.

In a study published last month in the biology journal, Apidologie, Prof. Guzman shoes that Varroa mites were the cause for over 85 per cent of honeybee deaths in Ontario.  Varroa mites are small, eight-legged parasites that thrive on the blood of honeybees.

According to Guzman, the Varroa mite has been a problem for roughly twenty years, but has become severe more recently.

“It’s becoming a stronger problem…because mites are developing a resistance to the chemicals that are being used to treat colonies against them,” said Guzman.

In Ontario, colonies have been reducing in size by one third for the last three years.

“It’s not economically sustainable to keep on losing [bees at that rate] and to purchase bees or to split colonies in half in order to make up for losses,” said Guzman. “If they have to do that every year, they’ll be out of the business very soon.”

According to Guzman, an understanding of the effect of bees on food production is crucial.

“It’s important to underscore that one third of the food that we eat in western societies is produced thanks to the pollinating services of bees,” he said, adding that there is no natural alternative to honeybee pollination.

For Guzman, the Varroa mite is among three main factors contributing to the disappearing bee phenomenon.  He also attributes the mortality rates to insufficient winter food supplies within colonies, as well as splitting colonies too late in the season. According to Guzman, the Varroa mite is particularly problematic in the fall and winter months when the queen is producing less bees.

While the findings in Guzman’s study are concerned with data from Ontario, he said he is certain that the Varroa mite is one of the factors contributing to bee deaths globally.

Guzman’s current project is finding an effective treatment, and he’s not focused on finding a miracle pesticide.

“I mean, many more synthetic pesticides can be developed to control the mite, but eventually, [the Varroa] might develop a resistance to all of them,” he said.

Guzman has been working on natural compounds that mites will be less likely to develop resistance to and won’t contaminate honey. He explained that thymol and oregano oils have been “very effective” at controlling the mites.  Guzman also suggested using bio-control agents like fungi that are naturally occurring in the environment, which do not negatively effect bees, have the potential to control the Varroa.

“A third way of approaching this problem…would be to develop genetically resistant bees, bees that are naturally resistant against the mite,” added Guzman.