Enemy under the Microscope

I've previously posted about Varroa Destructor, the asian mite that poses a huge threat to european honeybees, this week I spotted a dead one on the plastic board that goes beneath the nucleus hive. At about 2mm across and flat like a little discus they take some searching to spot but every bee keeper needs to look out for these critters.

Tiny 2mm corpse

One aspect of beekeeping I've not really spent any time on yet is microscopy. There's various things one can do with a microscope such as identifying bee diseases and pollen grains, learning a bit about bee anatomy and artificial insemination of queens if you ever feel the inclination. I haven't got round to examining the stomach contents of squashed bees for bacteria or searching for tracheal mites but I may give it a whirl on a rainy day.

Anyway a couple of years ago and purely for aesthetic reasons I acquired an antique microscope and have never really felt the need to upgrade to one of those new fangled models made in the past hundred years or so. Actually it's probaby a replica really as those old microscopes didn't have the best quality glass lenses and this one seems pretty sharp when it's focused. Also if it'd been made back in the days of yore I suspect it would have a manufacturers name on it somewhere, optics manufacturers were keen on that sort of thing -afterall it pays to advertise. The only downside to this very easy to use antique/possibly mock antique gadget is that like pretty much everything else made before 1996 it lacks a USB port, does look pretty tho.

The cutting edge of microscopy,
circa 1870.

I popped the dead mite on a slide, flipped it onto it's back and stuck it under the microscope. To get a photo with it I held my cameraphone (which now an HTC Desire S if you were wondering) above the microscope and manouvered it till I could see into it on the phone screen.Sounds easy enough ..but it wasn't. The slightest movement or angle change on the phone meant losing the image entirely and letting the phone rest on the viewfinder meant pushing the viewfinder down and losing focus.

For your delectation here's what I saw..

Varroa Destructor under the lens

Not the prettiest thing you could find at the bottom of the garden.Well actually I've not seen what you keep in your garden but it's certainly not the prettiest thing in mine. The structures you can see are it's eight legs and I think the thing sticking up in the middle is actually it's mouthparts, they punch a hole in the bee and suck out the hemolymph. Since it's discovery in the Soviet Union and Japan in the sixties (thanks Wikipedia!) these critters have travelled all over the world affecting honeybee stocks everywhere warm enough to support them with the exceptions of Autralia who's bio screening measures seems to be working, part of Libya and the Pitcairn Islands -probably on account of there's nothing of any actual interest to anyone on them. You may be thinking hang on it's a tiny creature with little midget legs how far can they actually travel? Well they can go up to about 3 1/2 miles riding a bee but they've also managed to travel huge distances thanks to people. Yeah people moved them all around the world by shipping bees all over the place so basically it's a man made problem. Face palms all round! Weather permitting I'll be treating the nucleus for varroa this weekend.