Hygienic Honeybees

[WI-beek]

I believe this is the guy who made the headlines a while back about finding a new hygienic behavior. Many said he just found more of what we already have. However it appears he has found a strain or gene that actually gets the bee to be a more aggressive groomers to the point they end up pulling of antenna of other bees when aggressively trying to groom off mites. He moves a queen with the gene to a highly infested hive and soon the mite population dropped. This would be another great addition to our mite tolerant arsenal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/collections/p007rdq3#p00hhdrw

[Oldtimer]

Very interesting.

Any updates how this project is going?

[masini]

Interestingly, however, great care must be taken lest this genetic selection may not occur with other major disadvantages - loss of other genetic qualities that bees could occur in other situations.
I for one prefer that families be as little bees treated, or treated with products as close to those of nature. In this way the bee race develops in the right direction and are not eliminated Varo natural pests. If you treat with chemicals, with Varo and eliminate its natural pests, and they will disappear from albien colony, which is wrong. We must learn to control it does not eliminate Varo total.

[megank]

My guess...just a guess is we've seen this trait before and that amputation of the antannae is a result of bees removing the infected pupa by grabbing onto the first available appendage available.