Trachea photograph

There's a marvellous micrograph (220 times magnification) of a bee's windpipe (trachea) infested with tracheal mites on livescience.com today.

The accompanying report says that some bees have become genetically resistant to the tracheal mites because they fastidiously groom themselves. Trachael mites are often associated with acarine, a disease that often kills colonies. (I once lost a colony to acarine.)