BEEKEEPERS STUNG BY INFESTATIONS OF KILLER MITES : 10-YEAR PLAGUE HAS BEEN COSTLY.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

For Acton beekeeper Bob Mearns, the death toll has risen to 3.7 million. In Piru, Red Bennett has lost even more bees. Both men are fighting a plague of killer mites that began invading their hives about a decade ago.

``It's had a tremendous negative effect on business,'' said Bennett, who's seen profits tumble 40 percent since the infestation started in 1987. ``It's been devastating to the beekeeping industry all across the United States.''

Two types of mites are attacking and killing bees. One, the pinhead-sized verroa mite, sucks fluids from developing bees, leaving them weakened, deformed or dead. Another, the microscopic tracheal mite, attacks the breathing tubes of adult bees, suffocating them.

In California, the mites have killed up to 90 percent of feral bees in some areas and even slowed the progress of the Africanized honeybees, experts said.

``It's going to take a while for native bees to adapt,'' said Bill Routhier, area manager for the state Department of Food and Agriculture. ``Our bees don't have any resistance to (the mites).''

The infestation has forced some beekeepers out of business. Eighteen months ago, Martin Pettit quit after 16 years of beekeeping because of mites, persistent droughts and low honey prices.

``It's a cumulative thing,'' Pettit said. ``It was years of dealing with drought, years of dealing with mites and years of dealing with Chinese honey being dumped on the U.S. market. I just can't blame it on the mites.''

But he and other beekeepers agree that the mites have had a harmful effect on the state's multimillion-dollar industry that supplied 24,000 pounds of honey last year.

In the last six years, almond pollination fees - a source of income for beekeepers - have increased 30 percent to 40 percent in California, Bennett said. In the past six months honey prices have jumped 40 percent. He attributes the increase in honey prices to a nationwide honey shortage but insists that the mites are to blame, too.

So far this year, Mearns has lost about 75 colonies or about 3.7 million bees to the mites. Each colony houses about 50,000 bees. To offset increased labor and medication costs, he has increased his honey prices by 20 percent and, in some cases, doubled his pollination fees.

``We're medicating,'' said Mearns, who lost more than 100 colonies last year. ``We're not rid of the mites, but we're keeping them under some sort of control.''

Beekeepers are fighting the tracheal mites with menthol vapors, and the verroa with Aspitan, a miticide that comes in plastic strips that are hung in the colonies. The parasite dies when it comes into contact with the strips.

``Both are only partial controls,'' said Bennett, who believes that genetically resistant bees are the only answer to the mite problem. But it could take years for the European honeybees to develop resistance to the parasites.

Meanwhile, persistent droughts have dried up the bees' food supply, leaving them weakened and vulnerable to the mites, especially the verroa. Unlike the tracheal mite, the verroa preys on bees when they're developing and at their weakest.

``The verroa mite attacks the larval bee while it's defenseless,'' Routhier said. ``It chews it to pieces. It chews off the legs, the wings and it comes off dwarfed or very weak.''

Routhier said the verroa mite may have come from Southeast Asia and quickly spread in the migratory beekeeping industry.

``It was like overnight, we found them all over the world,'' he said. ``They're in Canada and Mexico now.''

But beekeepers said their insects are making a strong comeback with better management techniques and effective pesticide use.

``We've seen the worst of it,'' Bennett said. ``We're starting to gain on it.''

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Photo: (ran in SAC, AV and CONEJO editions only--color in S AC and AV only) Bob Mearns of Acton has lost nearly 4 million bees to two types of invading mites.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News