Feral bee abundance and resistance to disease

[susan rudnicki]

I find it really difficult to locate information on any research that may be occurring using feral bees or Africanized bees for research into the mechanisms by which these bees remain resistant to varroa. Maybe I just don’t know where to look, but just found this on the website “BeeSource” under a discussion about the relative abundance of feral hives.

Peter Borst, of Cornell is writing—-

07-10-2014, 02:24 PM
here is a snip from Roxane’s work, which shows not only that people are looking at this but they are thinking about the potential benefit that could be gained by incorporating feral breeding stock into beekeeper’s colonies.

Through DNA sequence analysis of a mtDNA marker, we have identified distinct
lineages in unmanaged colonies of honey bees in the United States that do not occur
in managed colonies. This provides evidence that these lineages are not recent
descendants from managed honey bee populations, and that they have been
surviving as feral populations for a period of time, independent of managed populations.

Studies have revealed that feral honey bee populations have traits that
differ from managed honey bee populations. Atmowidjojo et al. (1997) found that
feral honey bee colonies in Arizona were more tolerant of high temperatures than
managed colonies. DNA sequencing of the mtDNA COI–COII marker could be
used to identify feral honey bee lineages that could be studied, once established in
managed apiaries, to determine if they possess any traits that are beneficial for
beekeepers.

[Author]

Posts