Say goodbye to pests with Bee Organi Shield's effective and affordable solutions.

BeeOrganiShield  ( BOS ) gathered research from outside sources like  Wikipedia, You Tube, Tik Tok, Instagram & other forums.

Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite, is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees and is one of the most damaging honey bee pests in the world. A significant mite infestation leads to the death of a honey bee colony, usually in the late autumn through early spring. Without management for Varroa mite, honey bee colonies typically collapse within 2 to 3 years in temperate climates. 

The Varroa mite can reproduce only in a honey bee colony. It attaches to the body of the bee and weakens the bee.  The species is a vector for at least five debilitating bee viruses, including RNA viruses such as the deformed wing virus (DWV).  The Varroa mite is the parasite with possibly the most pronounced economic impact on the beekeeping industry and is one of multiple stress factors contributing to the higher levels of bee losses around the world.  Varroa mite has also been implicated as one of the multiple causes of colony collapse disorder.   Management of this pest focuses on reducing mite numbers through monitoring to avoid significant hive losses or death. 3% of bees infested in a hive is considered an economic threshold where damage is high enough to warrant additional management. 

Adult mites feed on both adult bees and bee larvae by sucking on the fat body, an insect organ that stores glycogen and triglycerides with tissue abundant under epidermis and the surrounding internal body cavity. As the fat body is crucial for many bodily functions such as hormone and energy regulation, immunity and pesticide detoxification. Most significantly is pesticide detoxification is hindered by damage to the Honey Bee. It is important to for the Honey Bee the mite's consumption of the fat body weakens both the adult bee and the larva. Feeding on fat body cells significantly decreases the weight of both the immature and adult bee. Infested adult worker bees have a shorter lifespan than ordinary worker bees, and they furthermore tend to be absent from the colony far more than ordinary bees, which could be due to their reduced ability to navigate or regulate their energy for flight. Infested bees are more likely to wander into other hives and further increase spread. Bees will occasionally drift into other nearby hives, but this rate is higher for Varroa infested bees. 

Adult mites live and feed under the abdominal plates of adult bees primarily on the underside of the abdominal region on the left side of the bee. Adult mites are more often identified as present in the hive when on top of the adult bee on the thorax, but mites in this location are likely not feeding, but rather attempting to transfer to another bee.   Varroa mites have been found on flowers visited by worker bees, which may be a means by which phoretic mites spread short distances when other bees, including from other hives, visit.