Florida beekeepers are in a crisis, but one West Virginia University professor has been recognized for his efforts to help bring some relief.

Jim Amrine, professor of entomology in the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences, has been honored as Florida State Beekeepers Researcher of the Year.

Florida beekeepers are losing hundreds, if not thousands, of colonies to a combination of varroa mites and the pathogens, especially viruses, which they transmit,Dr. Amrine said.But hopefully were a light at the end of the tunnel.

Through a grant funded by the state of Florida, Amrine and his colleague, Robert Noel, of Cumberland, Md., implemented researched methods to control the parasitic mites in honey bee hives.

After spending their lives building these businesses, many beekeepers are not only losing their colonies but their livelihood,Amrine said.

For the past 17 years, beekeepers have relied on the use of chemicals to control the mites; however, those methods are no longer cost or time effective, and the mites have become resistant to the treatments.

But Amrine has potentially found a way to change that.

Through research, he and Noel developed cost-effective and easy-to-use methods for controlling varroa mites. The four-treatment protocol consists of using screened bottom boards, wintergreen/salt grease patties, feeding Honey-B-Healthy(a blend of water and spearmint and lemongrass essential oils), and using a specially designed 50 percent formic acid fumigator.

Typically, a beekeeper can routinely treat 100 colonies per day using the formic acid fumigator,Amrine said.The cost is less than $1 per hive, excluding labor.

Most honey bees are not affected by the formic acid because of a protective exoskeleton that repels the formic acid. However, this layer is absent in mites and its unlikely they will ever become resistant to the treatment, Amrine noted. Unlike the chemical pesticides typically used to treat the mites, the fumigator produces a vapor of 50 percent formic acid that dissipates in about 18 hours.

In previous studies performed in West Virginia, Maryland and Connecticut, the treatments eliminated all mites on adult bees and 90 to 95 percent in capped brood cells. Treatments of larger numbers of hives, in controlled experiments in Florida, resulted in an average of 93.3 percent of the mites in capped drone brood cells being eliminated.

West Virginia has a small beekeeping industry in comparison to Florida, and resources are few. But, if we succeed in Florida, beekeepers all over the U.S. will be able to treat their hives,Amrine explained.Our goal is to save the honey bee.

Amrine is also a sought after expert in the study of forensic entomology �€the use of insects to solve crimes.

For more information, contact Amrine, 304-293-6023 jamrine2@wvu.edu , or visithttp://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa06.