Minnesota bee experts launch pilot certification program for hygienic queens
---
FERGUS FALLS, Minn. - She really doesn't care whether they are Western,
Russian, Caucasian or Golden Italian honeybees. Their behavior is what
interests University of Minnesota bee researcher Marla Spivak. If they are
exceptional housekeepers, then she wants to be able to certify their queens
and put them to work breeding more like them in hives around the country.

Sound odd? Not in the least, when you consider the worker bees these queens
produce work hard to rid their colonies of disease and parasites - all
serious threats to bee colonies and considered by some experts to be
contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder, the mysterious anomaly that is
killing off colonies all over the world.

"This is a totally new and innovative project - never been done," the
researcher says. "People have tried to certify races of bees. This is not
about that. I don't care what the race of bees is, I just want to see if it
has certain characteristics."

Hygienic bees

In beekeeping vernacular, those characteristics are called "hygienic
behavior" and are something of a marvel of nature.

About 10 percent of all honeybees, regardless of race or lineage, carry the
genetic trait that compels the worker bees to maintain clean broods, the
honeycombed cells in which bee eggs grow until they are mature enough to
emerge and go to work as nurses, workers, drones or pollen gatherers.

Pathogens like American foul brood, a bacterial disease, and chalk brood, a
fungal disease, take hold of and feed on the larval bees while they are
growing inside the brood cells. Parasitic mites, aptly named "Varroa
destructors," also attack the larvae, feeding on them and growing to
reproductive maturity in the brood cells.

Chemical treatment of colonies became accepted practice for the diseases and
mites, but even those were suspected as adding to the stress within colonies
that may have been con-tributing to Colony Collapse Disorder, besides
costing more time and expense to beekeepers.

Cont'd:
http://www.agweek.com/articles/index.cfm?article_id=14539&property_id=41

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned 
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html