Jody Gerdts

The USDA-ARS Honey Bee Breeding lab is world renowned for bee research attracting collaborations from United States and international organisations. During my visit at the lab, Dr. Jiri Danihlik from Palacky_University in Olomouc Czechia spent a few weeks working on a project started by a student of his studying oxidative stress in bees. Dr. Juri specialises on bee immunity, but is also a skilled and experienced beekeeper and queen producer.

A few of us were having a chat in Bob’s lab (Bob Danka) where I was explaining to Juri the complexities of trying to prepare Australian stocks for living with Varroa and about the goals of my fellowship to better understand Varroa tolerance selection techniques. During my explaination, I was gently corrected by my friend and mentor Mike Simone-Finstrom that I was not looking for traits that conferred Varroa tolerance but rather Varroa resistance.

Up until that point, I through of resistance and tolerance as interchangeable words meaning the same thing: bees that lived with Varroa. However, after deeper consideration, we don’t want bees that tolerate Varroa just as we wouldn’t want a housemate that tolerates a dirty kitchen. Tolerance is about living with something and accepting it. Varroa tolerance becomes tricky to achieve because high mite levels usually means high virus loads and high virus loads are difficult to defend against and often lethal for colonies. So unless bees are tolerant of Varroa AND resistant to viruses, colonies will still die. In fact, we want traits that confer Varroa suppression and Varroa resistance, not Varroa tolerance.

Traits under selection providing protection from Varroa mites, must keep hive mite numbers and consequently keep virus loads at levels the bees’ immune systems (social and innate) can handle. Varroa resistant bee populations have been developed through both selective breeding programs and through good old fashion natural selection. The exact mechanisms providing resistance are not fully understood, and likely a combination of genetic and environmental influences. The end result, however, is the same: colonies keep Varroa from reproducing, keep virus levels low, and remain healthy without chemical intervention.

This article in Science Mag published in 2019 is quite a good read explaining “where we are at” with respect to breeding and arriving at Varroa resistant bees. It highlights work on marker assisted selection, the golden ticket in bee breeding, and describes some of the main reasons why uptake of Varroa resistance stock isn’t greater in commercialised beekeeping operations.

In the coming weeks, I will expand on some of the issues and projects mentioned in the article based on experiences from this fellowship.

Thank you to the International Specialised Skills Institute and the Victorian Honey Bee Compensation fund for making this possible.

Our second stop on the Varroa Tolerance tour brought us to Western Washington, the land of islands, rivers, mountains, and IPAs. At a friends house, we were directed to the beer fridge in the garage with the disclaimer that “there are several different beers to choose from”. In Washington, it turns out, that this translates to “there are several different IPAs to choose from.” Good luck finding a lager, or worse yet, an amber! Nothing remotely similar to our beloved Toohey’s OLD!

Just south of the town of Coupeville, located on Whidbey Island, we visited with Sue Cobey. Sue is a queen bee breeder specialising in instrumental insemination and contributed greatly to the development of the New World Carniolian.

Sue is one of the world’s experts on Instrumental Insemination (II) /Artificial Insemination (AI) of queen bees. Her courses are highly sought after and participants carefully vetted. We arrived at the tail end of a three day II course attended by people from all over the United States and a few international participants.

Courses like this one are essential for teaching skills fundamental to queen bee breeding. These skills are honed in by A LOT of practice. Participants here applied for the course and were chosen based on the likelihood that they will continue using and building upon the skills learned here.

During these travels, I have realised that there are two essential components to breeding for Varroa tolerance (or any other set of traits). One part is the selection criteria and techniques used to identify, measure, quantify, and weigh desired traits. The other aspect is the framework of the breeding program. An important part of program framework is capacity.

In my next post, I’ll lay out some thoughts about these two pillars of breeding programs important to get right in order to play “the long game” of bee breeding.

We are heading to the United States in a few weeks on an exciting adventure to learn how to breed Varroa tolerant bees from some of the most successful projects in the world. We will bring all our learning back to Australia and start creating the framework to tackle Varroa even before it arrives! This work is proudly supported by the International Specialised Skills Institute Agribusiness fellowship, the Victorian Honey Bee Compensation and Industry Development Fund and Bee Build.

We will first travel to Hawaii to learn about Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) breeding in a commercial apiary supported by the Arista Bee Research Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture. We will then visit Sue Cobey in Washington State to better understand the intricacies of incorporating imported stock into a breeding program.

From Washington we head to the Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Lab in Baton Rouge Louisiana to learn first hand by helping out with VSH trait identification and stock selection in the VSH and Pol-line lines of bees.

Our last two stops are Purdue University in Indiana to better understand selection for its mite biter bees, and then to visit the West Central Ohio Beekeepers Association to learn about collaborative breeding from “survivor stock”.

The project is titled “Development of Varroa tolerance selection methods tailored for the benefit of Victorian (and Australia wide) beekeepers and the honey bee industry”

We will be keeping our blog posts updated so keep in touch!!

Winter has finally arrived here in central Victoria. Hopefully all this rain will make for excellent spring forage. During winter bees hunker in their hives and feed off the stored honey and bee bread. In much of Australia temperatures are warm enough to supplemental feed if stores fall short.

Sugar provides carbohydrates necessary to give bees fuel to keep the brood nest warm while pollen supplement keeps protein levels of nurse bees up. Protein, fats, and amino acids help immune function of adult bees and also help sustain brood food glands of nurse bees. Fat healthy nurse bees and a warm brood nest enable brood production through out winter.

Bees and plants enter into their expansion phase when daylight begins to increase after the winter solstice (June 22, 2019). If the right amount of carbohydrates and proteins are available, colonies will begin to grow instead of just maintain or even shrink.

In the United States, feeding a pollen patty during the warm days of late winter is common practice in both hobby and commercial beekeeping operations. This early feeding encourages colony growth and health.

To support bees and beekeeper, we developed a winter patty out of our bee build sausage base mix. We added extra sugar, fats, and oils to our bee build sausage mix to support the health of overwintering bees.

These pollen patties are individually wrapped and easy to feed. Simply score the grease paper and place on top of the top bars of the brood nest. Keep the pollen patty accessible to nurse bees to promote colony growth or to emergency feed in your bees run out of stores.