
Read:
a longer story about the effort in Agricultural Research. Tracheal Mite
Testing Service on the Way for Bee BreedersBy Jan Suszkiw March 6, 2001A new commercial testing service could
be on tap this summer to help U.S. honey bee breeders check their
colonies mettle against parasitic tracheal mites, Acarapis woodi.
Under an agreement called a memorandum of understanding (MOU),
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
entomologists have provided Edwin Holcombe, a Shelbyville, Tenn., beekeeper
with the scientific expertise necessary to commercially test at least 15
breeder colonies from 10 clients on a first-come, first-serve basis. A similar
operation in Ontario, Canada, has helped the industry there cut the mite-to-bee
ratio from 13 mites per bee to 1.5. Currently, no such service exists in the
United States, notes Robert Danka, with ARSs
Honey Bee
Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A. woodi is an exotic pest that in high numbers can kill or weaken
honey bees by clogging their airways. Chemical controls are available. But
experts agree the best long-term solution is to spread genetic resistance
traits to the entire U.S. honey bee population, whose crop pollination is a $15
billion yearly asset to the nations agriculture. The testing service will incorporate techniques Danka and a colleague, ARS
entomologist José Villa, used to characterize mite resistance levels in
83 breeder colonies managed by eight commercial queen bee breeders in Hawaii,
California, Texas, Louisiana and Virginia. Specifically, they tested young
worker bees from the breeder colonies and compared them to bees from colonies
known to be either resistant or susceptible. The variability was surprising: Of
the surveyed colonies, two-thirds were mite-resistant, while one-fourth were
clearly susceptible. Holcombe, owner of Backwood Apiaries in Shelbyville, spent the past year
perfecting the researchers mite-testing protocol. Danka and Villa will
test Holcombes skills before certifying his proficiency. A longer story about the effort appears in this months issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
ARS is the U.S. Department of
Agricultures principal scientific research agency. Scientific contacts: Robert Danka and José Villa, ARS Honey
Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Laboratory, Baton Rouge, La., phone
(225) 767-9294, fax (225) 766- 9212, [email protected],
[email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |