The effect of one generation of controlled mating on the expression of hygienic behaviour in honey bees

Abstract

SummaryHoney bee mating cannot be directly controlled in the same way as in many agriculturally important animals. Instrumental insemination is, however, possible and can be used as an aid in selective breeding. Hygienic behaviour, in which worker bees detect and remove dead or diseased brood from capped cells, is a heritable trait that confers colony-level resistance against brood diseases. Using the freeze-killed brood (FKB) bioassay we compared the levels of hygiene in colonies headed by daughter queens reared from hygienic mother colonies that were either instrumentally inseminated with sperm from drones reared from hygienic colonies or allowed to mate naturally with naturally-occurring drones. Hygiene levels were significantly higher in the colonies of the instrumentally inseminated queens than in the colonies of the naturallymated queens. However, the hygiene levels in the naturally-mated colonies were encouragingly high and indicate that supplying beekeepers with naturally-mated queens, or virgin queens to mate locally, can result in colonies with high levels of hygiene.El efecto de una generación de apareamiento controlado sobre la expresión del comportamiento higiénico en las abejas melíferas Resumen El apareamiento de la abeja de la miel no puede ser controlado directamente de la misma forma que se hace en muchos animales de importancia agrícola. La inseminación instrumental es, sin embargo, posible y puede ser utilizada como ayuda en la cría selectiva. El comportamiento higiénico, en el que las abejas obreras detectan y eliminan la cría muerta o enferma de las celdas operculadas, es un rasgo hereditario que confiere resistencia al nivel de colonia contra enfermedades de la cría. Utilizando el bioensayo de congelar la cría para matarla (BCM) se compararon los niveles de higiene en las colonias gobernadas por hijas de reinas criadas en colonias madre higiénicas que fueron inseminadas instrumentalmente con esperma de zánganos criados de colonias higiénicas o a las que se dejó aparearse naturalmente con zánganos de origen natural. Los niveles de higiene fueron significativamente mayores en las colonias de las reinas inseminadas instrumentalmente que en las colonias de las reinas apareadas naturalmente. Sin embargo, los niveles de higiene en las colonias que se aparearon naturalmente fueron alentadoramente altos e indican que suministrar a los apicultores reinas apareadas naturalmente, o reinas vírgenes para que se apareen localmente, puede dar lugar a colonias con altos niveles de higiene.

Hygienic behaviour in Brazilian stingless bees

“…Unselected populations of honey bees show wide variation among colonies in the level of hygienic behaviour, but with a low mean and with few colonies that have high levels of hygienic behaviour (Pérez-Sato et al, 2009). By selective breeding it is possible to obtain colonies that are fully hygienic, defined as >95% removal of freeze-killed brood within 2 days (Bigio et al, 2014a; Ibrahim et al, 2007; Spivak and Reuter, 1998a,b). …”

Both hygienic and non-hygienic honeybee, Apis mellifera , colonies remove dead and diseased larvae from open brood cells

“…We determined the level of hygienic behaviour towards dead brood in sealed worker cells in the 20 study colonies using the FKB bioassay [22,24,30,34,39,40,41]. Colonies showing high levels of FKB removal have resistance against brood diseases (e.g.…”

“…It is a puzzle why hygienic behaviour is uncommon given that it seems to have no negative effects on the colony. One hypothesis is that in honeybees there are two alternative and disjunct adaptive peaks [35 -38]: (i) a high level of hygienic behaviour, so that diseased brood are removed swiftly, in some cases before the pathogen becomes infective [39,40]; (ii) a low level of hygienic behaviour, so that infected brood remain isolated within sealed brood cells as reported in Apis cerana for Varroa mites, European foulbrood and Thai sacbrood virus [38].…”

Two Novel Strains of Torulaspora delbrueckii Isolated from the Honey Bee Microbiome and Their Use in Honey Fermentation

“…However, as only small volumes of samples were surveyed from a single hive, a more extensive search may have yielded suitable yeasts. Alternatively, the lack of ethanol-tolerant yeasts may be attributed to the well-characterized hygienic behavior of honey bees, which are known to keep their hives clean in order to avoid disease [20][21][22][23].…”