Clean. Safe. Smart. The future of hive health
The threat
Understanding the Varroa Mite Threat
The Varroa mite is the leading driver of honeybee colony loss worldwide. These tiny parasites weaken bees, spread disease, and can collapse an entire colony within a single season — and existing treatments are struggling to keep up.
39.9% of US colonies lost, 2025 to 2026
#1 cause of colony collapse
Global food security impact
Why it matters
The stakes go beyond the hive
Honeybees pollinate a significant share of the foods we eat. As Varroa spreads, the risk extends far beyond individual apiaries — impacting agriculture and food security at scale.
US beekeepers lost an estimated 39.9% of their managed colonies between April 2025 and April 2026, and 55.6% the year before that, the highest annual loss on record. Varroa is a leading driver of both. In the 2024 to 2025 survey year, backyard beekeepers lost 51.4% of their colonies and commercial operations lost 56.2%, so this is not a problem that scale protects you from in either direction.
Without better tools, losses at that level threaten long-term colony health and agricultural productivity.
Source: the US Beekeeping Survey, run by Auburn University and the Apiary Inspectors of America. The 2024 to 2025 survey collected responses from 2,453 beekeepers managing 219,097 colonies.- Rapid colony decline within a single season
- Knock-on effects across ecosystems and food systems
- Growing resistance to existing chemical treatments
- Urgent need for sustainable, scalable solutions
The problem with current tools
What’s failing today
Traditional approaches are losing ground. Chemical treatments face growing resistance and risk contaminating hive products. Non-chemical options often demand labor and disruption most beekeepers cannot sustain.
1
Chemical resistance
Varroa mites are rapidly developing resistance to the most commonly used miticides, reducing efficacy over time and leaving beekeepers with fewer reliable options each season.
2
Residue and contamination
Chemical treatments can leave residues in wax, honey, and brood — raising concerns for producers, consumers, and the long-term health of the colony itself.
3
Labor and disruption
Non-chemical alternatives often require frame removal, transport, or hours of active management — stressful for the colony and unsustainable for working beekeepers managing multiple hives.
What that looked like in our own 2026 trial
We ran chemical control colonies alongside our heat-treated ones. Control colony B-1 received three oxalic acid vapor treatments across the season and still collapsed under its mite load.
Oxalic acid with brood present kills roughly 30% of mites per application. Against a mite population that doubles about every month during buildup, that is not enough. Across the full season we lost one of six chemical control colonies and none of our 20 ThermaHive-treated colonies. See the 2026 field results.
There is a better way.
ThermaHive is building a chemical-free, precision-controlled alternative designed to work within the realities of modern beekeeping. Our compiled research summary is available for beekeepers and researchers who want to dig deeper into the science behind thermotherapy.