Whats buzzing with Africanized honey bees?
“I’ve looked at about 40 colonies. Some have very few mites, and others are loaded,” Eischen says. “But if these had been EHB colonies without treatment, they all would have died long ago.” He is trying to isolate which mechanism provides the protection from Varroa mites. He has already ruled out hygienic behavior–the time it takes worker bees to clean out mites. But if he determines what AHBs do differently, it might be possible to breed that desirable trait into EHBs.–By J. Kim Kaplan, ARS. This research is part of Crop Production, an ARS National Program (#305) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars.usda.gov. To reach scientists mentioned in this story, contact Kim Kaplan, USDA-ARS Information Staff 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Beltsville.
