Researchers at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia's Lower Mainland are hopeful that a "promising" chemical compound could help honeybees fight off mites that bite and injure them, making them vulnerable to disease and death. Chemistry professor Erika Plettner says her team's field work is an important step along the path toward potentially commercializing the compound, which was identified in her lab several years ago, as one of a small number of options to treat bees for varroa mites.