Another great post Peter!  I love this history and I am glad you see value 
in dusting this work off for another look.  The remarkable thing about the 
program that Frank Pellet and Dadant got off the ground in 1935 was how 
quickly their population responded to selection.  The history of this 
program is covered briefly in the newest edition of Laidlaw and Page.  It 
is reviewed in much more detail by:

Rothenbuhler, W. C.  1958.  Genetics and breeding of the honey bee.  Annu. 
Rev. Entomol. 3: 161-180.

Spivak, M. and M. Gilliam.  1998.  Hygienic behavior of honey bees and its 
application for control of brood diseases and varroa; Part I. Hygienic 
behavior and resistance to American foulbrood.  Bee World.  79(3): 124-134.

I have often wondered how to square the moderate-low heritability of 
hygienic behaviour with the rapid increase in AFB-resistance in the 
breeding program Pellet started.  One obvious difference is that Pellet's 
assay was a to put a 2 x 2.5 inch insert of AFB-infected comb into each 
prospective breeder.  With a different assay it was likely that their 
selection "net" may have "dragged" in a number of other more heritable AFB-
resistant traits... thus the rapid gain.  This is of interest to me 
because it suggests that their may be considerable fruits to be picked by 
taking a second look at other AFB-resistance traits. I know of one 
excellent attempt, which was tragically cut short, to look at AFB-
resistance in larvae.  The preliminary work demonstrated considerable 
differences between two commercial bee stocks in Denmark (the heritability 
of this difference remains unknown). 

http://www.planteinfo.dk/bier/tolerance.pdf

It is indeed interesting how breeding for disease-resistance has again 
entered onto the stage.  The ABJs in the 1940s are a veritable battle of 
opinions for and against breeding vs. sulfa.  Sulfa won the day. The last 
report from the aforementioned breeding program is in 1949, when it seems 
to have disolved into a hybrid breeding program... anyone know the rest of 
this story? Steve Taber was an avocate of breeding for hygienic behaviour, 
and then Dr. Spivak renewed this work in the 1990s with some absolutely 
top-rate research.  The revival is in full swing.

The lack of interest to date may have to do with the low priority AFB-
resistance has among beekeepers.  Denis van Englesdorp was the first to 
demonstrate to me how little interest there was. In 2000 he surveyed 
Ontario beekeepers.  He gave them 100 points to allocate among a number of 
important traits.  While they allocated 35 points to honey production and 
10 points to varroa resistance, AFB resistance garnered a measley 7 points 
(behind overwintering ability, reisistance to tracheal mites, and more-or-
less tied with spring build up).  I suspect AFB-resistance has moved up in 
importance, but nonetheless it has a way to climb in the eyes of the 
beekeeping industry before queen breeders give it attention, particularily 
given its moderate-low heritability of HB.   

van Engelsdorp, D. and G. W. Otis.  2000.  Application of a modified 
selection index for honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae).  J. Econ. Entomol.  
93(6): 1606-1612.

I do not, however, believe that economics should be the only thing 
deciding whether a trait is bred for.  There is an arguement that the 
decision to give up line breeding in corn in favour of hybrids was not a 
biologically-based decision, but rather one based on the fact that 
investment was more readily raised for the latter because the F2 are not-
viable.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_v38/ai_4325182/pg_1

Thanks again Peter for brining this topic up.
Adony

 

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