​​When we set up LASI Queen Bees in April 2016 we knew it would be a challenge. But we had a plan for supplying hygienic queens that was practical, and from the research we and others have done we knew that we had a worthwhile product: bees with natural resistance to diseases of brood in sealed cells. ​

Commentary

Francis Ratnieks recalls a recent trip to California and looks at the focus on natural resistance to honey bee diseases.

Commentary
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​The honey bee year has no beginning or end. Colonies have bees in them all year round. But the beekeeping year has what can be considered a natural beginning in early spring, when a beekeeper makes his or her first hive inspection and the colonies are building up. We look at the first spring inspection and checking honey stores & queen status.

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​Commentary

Hygienic behaviour is a collective defence against brood diseases. Hygienic workers uncap sealed brood cells containing dead and diseased larvae and remove the contents. But how can beekeepers take advantage of this behaviour?

Commentary

​Hygienic behaviour is a collective defence against brood diseases. Hygienic workers uncap sealed brood cells containing dead and diseased larvae and remove the contents. In this way they reduce the spread of pests and diseases within the colony. For example, if a diseased larva or pupa is removed quickly the disease may not yet be infective. In the case of varroa mites, female offspring will not yet be mature and so will die, thereby reducing varroa increase in the colony.  ​

​Commentary

In 1976, as an undergraduate taking a BSc degree in Ecology at the University of Ulster, I was shown a tape of a BBC science program on evolution. Appearing in the program was the late Professor John Maynard Smith of Sussex University. He was commenting, among other things, on honey bee hygienic behaviour, for which there was a short clip showing brood infected with American foulbrood. (I am not sure why I can remember this, as at the time I had no particular interest in honey bees.)