A seventh-grade science project has turned into a sweet deal for one ISU student.

Though she is only an freshman, Carol Fassbinder’s research with honey bees may be changing the world. Her research into compounds that control a honey bee parasite have won her national and international attention, trips around the world and nearly $70,000.

For the past 10 years, tiny creatures that are smaller than the head of a pin have been devastating the honey bee population. These parasites, called Varroa jacobsoni, came from an Asian species of honey bee.

Fassbinder said there were 200,000 honey bee colonies in 1988, and now there are fewer than 40,000 due to these mites.

The mites cause stress to the bees, and when winter arrives, beekeepers can lose up to 50 percent of their population.

Controlling the mites without killing the bees has been the focus of Fassbinder’s research. Fassbinder, Justin Grodnitzky, graduate student in entomology, and entomology professor Joel Coats have their names on the patent for a natural spearmint oil that can be used to control the mites.

“At first things didn’t work like I thought because a lot of the compounds, or ingredients, in spearmint oil also killed the bees,” Fassbinder said. “I tried laboratory tests and also tested out on my family’s colonies. I found that there was one compound in particular that killed the mites but did not kill the bees.”

These laboratory tests that Fassbinder worked on were not actually done in a real laboratory. Her home kitchen table served as her lab.

This research project started when Fassbinder was in seventh grade. She saw firsthand what the mites were doing to her family’s honey bee farm and decided to work on it as her science project.

Fassbinder’s parents, Robert and Kathy Fassbinder, are both ISU alumni and have been professional beekeepers for 25 years. Her father had been an electrical engineer for a few years until he and his wife followed their love for the outdoors and became bee keepers. They started with 250 bee colonies and now have 2,000 in northeast Iowa.

“The mites that Carol is working with have really thrown us a curve,” Robert Fassbinder said. “Hopefully, what she is doing will make things better for honey bee farmers. It is a very serious problem and is the reason that so many people have given up.”

He said that for the farmers, the bees have very distinct personalities.

“It is just like if a pet or a farmer’s calf were sick,” Fassbinder said. “You can really get attached to them. You really feel for them when they are sick.”

Fassbinder said when Carol first contacted the entomology department at Iowa State, Coats visited their farm. At that time, it was winter, and as they opened one of the hives, some of the bees fell into the snow.

“Normally that would have been the end of them, but instantly we started picking them up, one by one,” Coats said. “Carol just couldn’t let them die in the snow. If you work with them, you just get attached.”

It was this devotion that brought Carol Fassbinder into the national spotlight. She has a long list of awards and money prizes that she has won, including fourth place for the Intel Science Talent Search, National Junior Science and Humanities Award, Worldwide Young Researchers for the Environment Award and First Place Army Award at the International Science Fair.

Fassbinder will be going to Germany in October with her research. She has already been in Japan, England, California, New York and Florida.

“I have got to see some amazing things and even met Nobel Prize winners, but I really love knowing it is helping others. Someone has to do it,” Fassbinder said.

The 18-year-old zoology major also captured the eye of the national media. She was featured in USA Today, The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Science News, the London Financial Times, several Iowa newspapers and on many television stations.

Fassbinder was a guest on Good Morning America and has received prize money from awards, totaling about $70,000.

“It is nice to be able to go to college and not have to pay for it, but that isn’t the reason why I did it,” Fassbinder said. “I would rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable. Helping other people is what I would like to do with my life.”