Here’s a go-to recipe for beekeepers.

It’s called a “sugar shake.” Take a half-cup of bees.

That’s about 300.

Put them in a jar and cover them with a mesh lid.

Add two tablespoons confectioners’ sugar.

Shake for 30 seconds.

We’re  going for a nice, even coat.

Empty the sugar onto a tray.

And there  you have it: frosted varroa mites,   aka Varroa destructor.

They’re  a honeybee’s worst enemy.

The fine-powdered sugar made them  lose the grip they had on their hosts.

A minute ago, the mites were  on the bees in the hive.

It’s as if you were carrying around  a tick the size of a dinner plate.

Every year, up to half the managed honeybee  hives in the United States die from hazards   like pesticide exposure, lack of flowers  to forage on year-round, and varroa mites.

To feed, a varroa mite nestles  between the bees’ protective plates.

It digs in with its gnarly mouth, the  gnathosoma.

The mite sinks it into a   crucial organ called the fat body.

It’s  a layer of tissue that lines the abdomen.

Sort of like the human liver, the fat body  helps the bee break down harmful stuff,   including pesticides.

And it maintains the bee’s  immune system.

So, when varroa mites attack the   fat body, they seriously weaken the bee.

The mites can also transmit a virus   that causes a bee to be born with  deformed wings, no good for flying.

Let’s go back to the “sugar shake.” Beekeepers use  them to monitor the varroa mites in their hives.

As few as three mites per half-cup of bees  could kill a hive within the year.

That’s   because varroa mites are great at sneaking  into hives, hiding, and reproducing like mad.

The first mite gets into a hive by hitching a  ride on a bee from another colony.

Maybe the   bee’s own colony wasn’t doing well  and it was looking for a new home.

The mite sniffs around for a bee larva and sneaks  in right before the bees cover the cell with wax.

The defenseless larva is now trapped  with its enemy, which begins to feed.

As the larva grows into a pupa, the mite,   called a foundress, starts her family.

Take a look underneath this bee pupa.

The mite’s firstborn is always a son.

The rest   are daughters.

They’re hard to  tell apart when they’re young.

When the siblings come of age inside  the cell, they’ll meet up on this pile   of mite poop – maybe they’re guided by the  scent.

And they’ll mate … with each other.

Sometimes two foundresses make it  into a cell.

Then their offspring   get to mate with someone they’re not related to.

The mites live off the bee  pupa, but they don’t kill it.

When the bee is all grown up, it  chews its way out of the cell.

The mite slips onto its next victim.

So, why don’t the bees just  pick those mites off themselves?

Well, we didn’t start seeing varroa  mites in the U.S. until the 1980s.

They evolved on eastern honeybees, in  Asia.

That’s why the western honeybees   in the Americas and Europe aren’t  yet good at defending against them.

When beekeepers find mites in a sugar  shake, they treat a hive with pesticide   strips that kill the mites.

But  mites are becoming resistant.

So, researchers are selectively  breeding honeybees to fight back.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and  private companies are breeding bees   that can sniff out varroa mites.

When the bees  find some, they uncap the cells and interrupt   reproduction.

The bees then, um, “recycle”  the unlucky pupa.

Yep, they’re eating it.

At Purdue and Central State universities,  scientists breed honeybees known as “mite-biters.” After collecting sperm from a  male bee, they inseminate a queen.

Both the queen and the male come  from colonies that are particularly   good at killing mites by chewing off their legs.