USDA research points to viruses spread by pesticide-resistant mites, indicating a worrying trend
U.S. beekeepers had a disastrous winter. Between June 2024 and January 2025, a full 62% of commercial honey bee colonies in the United States died, according to an extensive survey. It was the largest die-off on record, coming on the heels of a 55% die-off the previous winter.
As soon as scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) caught wind of the record-breaking die-offs, they sprang into action—but their efforts were slowed by a series of federal funding cuts and layoffs by President Donald Trump’s administration. Now, 6 months later, USDA scientists have finally identified a culprit.
According to a preprint posted to the bioRxiv server this month, nearly all the dead colonies tested positive for bee viruses spread by parasitic mites. Alarmingly, every single one of the mites the researchers screened was resistant to amitraz, the only viable mite-specific pesticide—or miticide—of its kind left in humans’ arsenal.
How fun.
They rushed into action how exactly? It’s been known and reported for multiple years. The Varroa management book discusses their ability to develop resistance to chemical treatments.
Whole section on managing potential resistance and rotating active ingredients used in control. That information was published in 2022. I can’t tell if it is just government bodies trying to give credit for their earlier work to new people/incompetence by the administration to not already have that information or who knows what
https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/varroa-management/
(Sorry, bothered me because I remembered reading about them when I was contemplating getting bees, but I put them off because I wanted to make sure my chickens were doing well and not get my hands to full all at once.)
Perhaps the point here is not the mites ability to resist but the fact the surge in bee deaths was caused by mites.
I think there’s an element of media click bait and finger pointing to funding cuts to sell an otherwise mediocre story.