Berkeley-based photographer Anand Varma, photographed his bees as they developed in their brood cells, nursing as larvae on royal jelly secreted by other bees. Soon, their legs and heads emerge, and finally, their eyes become pigmented and their skin compresses and grows a fuzzy layer of hair.
It’s in these brood cells that the Varroa destructor appears, jumping from one to the next, feeding on the colony’s blood, and crippling the immune systems of its bees.