Commercial beekeepers are worried that a tiny parasitic mite that destroys the lifecycle of honeybees might devastate their industry and cost the nation's fruit and nut farmers billions of dollars.
The Varroa mite, officially known as the Varroa Jacobsoni, is a crab-shaped
arachnid the size of a pinhead that attaches itself to a bee and sucks its blood for sustenance.
Eric Mussen, a UC Davis Extension bee expert who provides scientific guidance to California's bee keepers, says the Varroa mite is now resistant to all registered pesticides. And that means big trouble for farmers and their agricultural commodities that depend on honeybees for pollination.
I realize that the world is having a major problem with the demise of the Bee population.
The ANSWER to this PROBLEM is: GROW MINT PLANTS NEAR THE HIVES or IN YOUR GARDEN.
Mint pollen has a natural enzyme that KILLS the Varroa Jacobsoni mite. It is transferred on the bee fur, carried back to the hives and inoculates the rest of the hive. In 1989, I bought a poor little battered spearmint plant for 50 cents, that was on a sale table at a nursery. 18 years later we have a 40 foot hedge. They multiply and flower in early summer. The bees have come every year and pollinate our fruit trees and veggies, even when all of the local bee hives have died. They must come from many miles away, for which I am very grateful.
