A shortage of varroa mites is not stopping a Dunedin researcher studying some remarkable behaviour in bees that might one day mean a natural resistance to the mite.
Dunedin PhD student Sally Kim has been forced into the unusual position of having to advertise in the Otago Daily Times for varroa mites, after the hives she used had not had their usual seasonal re-infestation.
She said she was looking for beekeepers who have hives with between 15% and 30% infestation.
Ms Kim is studying a trend in bees in which some strains have become resistant through varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH) behaviour.
That meant they had learned to detect and remove infestations on a brood, which is like a honeycomb but contains under-developed bees.
Bees that exhibited the behaviour would remove a wax cap on a cell within the brood comb, and disrupt the reproductive behaviour of the varroa mites.
"What they do is poke a hole through the wax cap,'' Ms Kim said.
The bees slowly enlarged that hole with their mouth, and eventually removed the whole cap and pupae, meaning the mite's offspring died. The mite could go on to another cell, but could only reproduce four times.
The 24-year-old's research involved setting up an observation colony to identify worker bees that performed the VSH behaviour.
She would tag the VSH bees in the hive, and once she saw a bee performing VSH behaviour would monitor it.
Ms Kim hoped her research would help promote natural resistance in honey bees to the varroa mite, and help end the need for chemical treatments which, she said, were not sustainable.
