MECHANISMS OF BEE RESISTANCE TOLERANCE TO VARROA MITES/

Now that varroa is here to stay, we can no longer keep bees without at tending to the mite levels in our colonies. As Tom Sanford, extension entomologist from Florida, has said, ''we have now domesticated the ho ney bee''. But all is not lost-the interaction of pests and hosts is a continually-changing, on-going battle. There are some things we can d o to reduce the impact of these ticks of the bee-mite world. One of th em is to select bees (and subsequently the mites) in our colonies that exhibit those characteristics or behaviors we now know can moderate m ite infestations and their accompanying problems (such as the bee para sitic mite syndrome). There may be other mechanisms discovered in the future, as more and more scientists study the interaction of mites and bees.