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There have been a lot of discussions on the pros and cons of African bees. One topic that comes up is hygienic behavior. Is hygienic behavior responsible for lower mite loads in African bees? New research says no.
In Apis mellifera, hygienic behavior involves recognition and removal of sick, damaged or dead brood from capped cells. We investigated whether bees react in the same way to grouped versus isolated damaged capped brood cells. Three colonies of wild-type Africanized honey bees and three colonies of Carniolan honey bees were used for this investigation. Carniolan bees were somewhat, though not significantly more hygienic than Africanized honey bees
Kátia P. Gramacho. 2009. Comparative study of the hygienic behavior of Carniolan and Africanized honey bees