It's been over ten years since I spent any serious time with bees, but the bees themselves did a great job on the varroa mites. Sentinel bees at the hive entrance would pick the mites off the incoming bees. The problem was if the colony had a solid floor the mites would just climb back onto the next bee that passed nearby. If the solid colony floor was replaced with a mesh, the mites would fall through to the ground below while the bees could still go about their business.

We would still sometimes treat for varroa, but making it easier for the bees to handle varroa how they had evolved to was the first line of defence.

This was Canada, regular Italian bees, hard winter kills of whatever wasn't properly winterized.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8

It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops?

I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact we are perpetuating a square peg in round hole problem and pushing it very very far right now, at greater and greater cost, all while climate change is fighting us.

"The peptides killed only the mites, while the bees survived."

What benefits do these new treatments offer? They certainly won't be cheaper.

https://www.honeybeesuite.com/can-powdered-sugar-control-var...

Edit: "Treatments every week killed more mites than treatments every two weeks, which killed more mites than treatments every month... The only treatment schedule that effectively suppressed mites over long periods was once per week... sugar dusting has been found to significantly reduce adult mite populations at times when little brood is present."

Perhaps it is time to stop blaming the mites for the decline of the honeybees.