>Unless unhealthy brood odor is strictly environmental, I would think both are genetic.

I communicated with Dr. Wagoner relative to the attached paper from
Modet et al asking, '... how your UBeeO compounds compare to the
results of Dr. Fanny Mondet, et. al? Is it safe to say that UBeeO is
specifically simulating varroa-parasitized brood or is it more of a
general unfitness marker?'

She replied (with permission to quote) by noting:

'My understanding of Fanny’s work is that she has identified several
ketones and acetates. These differ from the UBeeO compounds in that
they contain oxygen (UBeeO compounds are strictly hydrocarbons) and
they are associated with Varroa Parasitization specifically (hence her
term VPS). In contrast, the UBeeOs are found on all healthy and
unhealthy brood, but are elevated in unhealthy individuals. We have
shown elevated UBeeOs in both Varroa-infested individuals and
non-infested but virus-infected individuals. Given what we see
regarding the disease loads of UBeeO high colonies (high UBeeO
colonies have fewer mites, lower virus loads, lower Nosema loads, and
less chalkbrood) we conclude that UBeeO is more a general stress
signal. This is supported by a finding that ant pupae targeted for
unpacking (which is comparable to bee hygiene) exhibit elevated levels
of one of our UBeeO compounds -evolutionarily this system may go back
quite a ways. In my view this is beneficial in a practical sense,
because it allows beekeepers to select for bees that are generally
good at identifying unhealthy brood. One of the neat things we are
starting to see is that there are different thresholds of UBeeO
response required to control different diseases. For example, to
achieve mite resistance colonies typically need to respond to UBeeO in
the 60-100% range, while Chalkbrood resistance may be achieved in
colonies with much lower UBeeO responses (indicating that Varroa
parasitization is more subtle than chalkbrood infection, supported by
findings from FKB [freeze-killed brood] selection).'

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