Growing up in Arizona’s beautiful Sonoran Desert, I spent my childhood camping, fishing, and hiking as part of a Boy Scout chapter. As an adult, my love of the outdoors deepened my appreciation for nature’s complexities as I backpacked my way across Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and North Carolina.
These adventures led me to learn more about beekeeping. Ten years ago, while working for a bee product company in Arizona, I studied the intricate relationship between honey bees and our food supply. I then managed colonies on corporate campuses across the eastern US with Bee Downtown, a company that uses a hands-on approach to underscore the importance of pollinators. This is where my path crossed with GreenLight Biosciences’s, whose beehives at Research Triangle Park I helped manage.
During a hive tour, one of the participants pointed out varroa mites on the frame of bees I was demonstrating. Intrigued by how they recognized a tiny mite, I followed up post-tour and learned that GreenLight Bio was working on a cutting-edge approach to controlling varroa mites within bee colonies. That moment led me to where I am today, working to help introduce this emerging technology to beekeepers across the US and Canada.
Educating the public about honey bees has always been part of my job. Whether managing colonies, conducting hive tours, or working in sales, I’ve been uniquely positioned to introduce the public to the threat of varroa. Beekeepers struggle year after year to contain the damage caused by these parasitic mites to hives across the world. Current treatments are a mix of off-label preparations, acids, and synthetic chemicals, some of which are showing alarming resistance, so beekeepers—many of whom are losing more than 50 percent of their colonies every year—desperately need a new approach, one that is safe for bees and effective. The time is now.
That’s where NorroaTM comes in. It’s a different approach to varroa control that uses RNA targeted directly at the female varroa mite, preventing her from being able to reproduce within the hive while preserving the health of bees in the colony. I'm excited to help introduce this revolutionary next-generation approach to beekeepers around the world and provide another tool in the battle against varroa mites that is effective, safe, and easy to use.
Eric Walgren is the Regional Sales and Marketing lead for bee health at GreenLight Biosciences.
