Project Apis m.
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Project Apis m.
    • PAm Staff
    • Scientific Advisors
    • PAm Board of Directors
    • Annual Reports >
      • 2022 Annual Report
      • 2021 Annual Report
      • 2020 Annual Report
    • Contact Us
  • News
    • PAm eNewsletter
    • Project Apis m. Blog
    • Inside the Hive TV
  • Honey Bee Research
    • Honey Bee Research
    • PAm-Costco Scholars
    • Request Funding
    • RFPs
  • Seeds For Bees
    • Apply to Enroll
    • Seeds For Bees FAQs
    • Seeds For Bees For the Grower >
      • Water Requirements
      • Cover Crop Competition
      • Nitrogen Management
      • FAQs for Growers
      • Seeds for Bees Resources
      • Seeds For Bees Net 30 Agreement
    • PAm Seed Mixes >
      • PAm Pollinator Brassica Mix
      • PAm Annual Clover Mix
      • PAm Bio Build 3 Mix
      • Pollinator Wildflower Mix
      • NitroBuilder Mix
  • Forage
    • Forage (Home)
    • Forage Videos
  • Resources
    • Guide to Indoor Storage of Honey Bee Colonies in the USA
    • Guide to Shipping Honey Bee Queen Cells
    • Guide to Honey Bee Queen Banking
    • Best Management Practices For Beekeepers (Home) >
      • Honey Bee Nutrition
      • Varroa
      • Nosema
      • Honey Bee Equipment Management and Maintenance
      • Honey Bee Colony Management
    • Best Management Practices For Almond Growers
  • Video
  • Supporters
    • Support Us
    • Christi Heintz Scholarship
    • Corporate Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Testimonials
  • MVP Nominations

Project Apis m. Blog

Developing Beekeeper Tools to Test for Hygienic Behavior

11/28/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture
Photo courtesy of Martin W. Kane: Dr. Kaira Wagoner, Dr. Olav Rueppell, and Christopher Reid collect samples from research frames
​Dr. Kaira Wagoner is a post-doctoral fellow in the Social Insect Lab at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.  In 2013, Kaira was one of the first PAm/Costco Scholarship award recipients.  In alignment with PAm’s values, Kaira is dedicated to developing practical and sustainable solutions to honey bee health threats.
 
Kaira has been working towards a better understanding of the mechanisms behind hygienic behavior in honey bees.  Hygienic behavior is a trait that all honey bee colonies possess to some degree.  It involves the ability of nurse bees in a colony to sense a health problem in capped brood cells and remove the compromised brood, effectively slowing the spread of pathogens and parasites in the colony.  This behavioral trait can be an advantage to the overall health and survival of the colony.  
Picture
Photo: Hygienic bees detect, uncap, and remove unhealthy brood
​Hygienic behavior is frequently selected for in breeding and beekeeping operations; this trait has long been available and popular with beekeepers (for example, the MN hygienic stock).
 
For several years, Dr. Wagoner and her colleagues have been researching hygiene-related chemical communication in honey bee colonies. They have found that, while adult bees selected for hygienic behavior certainly have better capacity to detect problems under capped cells, the brood itself also plays a role in triggering the behavior.  In short, the capped brood, if compromised, can send out a chemical signal that causes the adult bees to uncap and remove it.  Not only have they discovered this, but they have also identified specific chemicals responsible for triggering hygienic behavior. 
 
In addition to the inherent value of this knowledge, the goal of this research is to develop a tool which helps beekeepers, breeders, and scientists easily test the level of hygienic behavior that a colony or genetic strain of bees exhibits.  Dr. Marla Spivak at the University of Minnesota first developed a way to test for this trait, however, it requires the use of liquid nitrogen which can be difficult to acquire, and cumbersome to use in a practical setting.  Liquid nitrogen also kills the brood outright, making a good, but perhaps less biologically relevant method.  Kaira’s solution (currently in development) incorporates the chemistry and biology from her research, and serves as a simple, cost effective, easy-to-use alternative.     
Picture
Photo: Dr. Kaira Wagoner holds up an empty liquid nitrogen tank demonstrating its large and awkward size, which is one factor that can make it difficult to use in practical applications.
​This tool has the potential to allow beekeepers and breeders to easily determine which colonies and lines to continue propagating if they desire hygienic behavior.  The UNCG researchers are currently looking for commercial partners to develop a ready-to-use product.
​
It is a step towards truly bringing the lab to the landscape by putting more power of information and choice directly into the hands of beekeepers.  The long-term effect of such a technology could help reduce the number of treatments needed in beekeeping operations; saving beekeepers money, and supporting larger-scale honey bee health solutions. 
 
The PAm/Costco scholarship helped Kaira get started on this project, and PAm has been supporting this research ever since, contributing over $100,000 to 4 separate but related sets of experiments. 
 
Another of Kaira’s PAm supported research projects determined that the common practice of using steel wire in brood frames can increase iron content and cause significant removal of honey bee brood, which may affect colony size and, thus, overwintering success.  Please Click Here to read the publication and learn more about the results of this practical, applied research.
Picture
Photo: Dr. Wagoner’s research showed that brood along the steel wire (red circles) has a higher iron content, and is more likely to be removed than brood adjacent to the wire (blue circles)
​In part because of PAm’s early and continued support of her work, Kaira was awarded a substantial USDA grant to continue her research and development in collaboration with other researchers, including Dr. Marla Spivak. 
 
Kaira and her colleagues have been working on this project for over six years in the lab, and the work continues.  It often takes many years of projects and publications to produce a practical tool that can help change the future for honey bees.  In the end, this is a very nice example of how investing in research will move us forward from idea, to discovery, to applications and solutions.   
Picture
Photo: Research Colonies at UNCG
Dr. Kaira Wagoner has been a nature lover all her life, but her formal education began at Guilford College, where she double majored in Biology and Health Sciences, and minored in Chemistry and Astronomy.    After the death of a dear friend from malaria, Kaira was inspired to return to school to study malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Her master’s thesis was entitled “Identification of morphologic and chemical markers of aestivating conditions in female Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes.” This work fostered her interest in the chemical ecology of insects, although for her doctorate she decided to switch her focus to a beneficial insect – the honey bee.   She was particularly interested in the social immune mechanism hygienic behavior, the ability of adult honey bees to detect and remove unhealthy brood from the hive, improving the overall health of the colony.  Kaira’s doctoral dissertation was an investigation of the relationships between common stressors, brood-signaling, hygienic behavior, and selective breeding in the honey bee.  As a post-doctoral fellow, she has continued this work, and is currently using natural honey bee stress signals to develop an assay for the improved selection of hygienic behavior. 
 
Click Here to visit the UNCG Social Insect Lab.
Click here to read more about this project in Entomology Today.
By Sharah Yaddaw
Communications Director
Project Apis m.
1 Comment
Ed Scott
3/1/2019 09:00:12 am

Hi,
I was hoping I could ask a few questions. I have tried researching these topics but have not been able to find answers. Is your hygienic testing kit available yet?

I want to do testing this year to evaluate lines of queens we have available for breeding.
• I would use liquid nitrogen, which is cheap, but even a small transport dewar is expensive. Can testing be done using a can of freeze spray? There is histological freeze spray and other commercial products.
• I saw a pin cushion plunger to kill the larva at a Vancouver bee club website. Do you know if there is there a product like this available?
• Are there any smartphone apps that utilize the camera to score the testing area?
• Is there an optimal larva age for testing?

If helpful, here is some information on us.
We are located near West Chicago, Illinois. A friend and I both have our own apiaries and work together. I have taken grafting training and did some grafting last year. We plan on doing small scale queen production this year. We will have about 25 hives dedicated for honey and the same for number available to support queen and nuc production with honey secondary. We have two good lines of queens that have overwintered for now two years and overwintered Pol-line queens from the grafting class. I am a member of Illinois Queen Initiative and am also considering buying an instrumentally inseminated queen to produce F1 queens.

Appreciate your time. Regards,

Ed Scott
630-334-0272, ed_scott11@yahoo.com

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Almond Pollination
    Bee Informed Partnership
    Beekeeping
    Forage
    Funding Opportunities
    Honey
    Honey Bee
    Honey Bee Health
    Honey Bee Management
    Honey Bee Nutrition
    Honey Bee Research
    Neonicotinoid Research
    Nosema
    Pesticide Research
    Queen Bee
    Research
    Seeds For Bees
    Varroa

    RSS Feed

    News Archives

    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    December 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    September 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015

Donate online

DONATE

follow us

donate with check to:

 Project Apis m.
PO Box 26793
Salt Lake City, UT 84126​
916-287-3035

Contact us

Picture

Project Apis m. is a 501(c)5 nonprofit organization. Your donation is not deductible on your individual income tax form. There are other business, foundation, or trust tax benefits, please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your contributions.
Copyright © 2017 Project Apis m. All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Project Apis m.
    • PAm Staff
    • Scientific Advisors
    • PAm Board of Directors
    • Annual Reports >
      • 2022 Annual Report
      • 2021 Annual Report
      • 2020 Annual Report
    • Contact Us
  • News
    • PAm eNewsletter
    • Project Apis m. Blog
    • Inside the Hive TV
  • Honey Bee Research
    • Honey Bee Research
    • PAm-Costco Scholars
    • Request Funding
    • RFPs
  • Seeds For Bees
    • Apply to Enroll
    • Seeds For Bees FAQs
    • Seeds For Bees For the Grower >
      • Water Requirements
      • Cover Crop Competition
      • Nitrogen Management
      • FAQs for Growers
      • Seeds for Bees Resources
      • Seeds For Bees Net 30 Agreement
    • PAm Seed Mixes >
      • PAm Pollinator Brassica Mix
      • PAm Annual Clover Mix
      • PAm Bio Build 3 Mix
      • Pollinator Wildflower Mix
      • NitroBuilder Mix
  • Forage
    • Forage (Home)
    • Forage Videos
  • Resources
    • Guide to Indoor Storage of Honey Bee Colonies in the USA
    • Guide to Shipping Honey Bee Queen Cells
    • Guide to Honey Bee Queen Banking
    • Best Management Practices For Beekeepers (Home) >
      • Honey Bee Nutrition
      • Varroa
      • Nosema
      • Honey Bee Equipment Management and Maintenance
      • Honey Bee Colony Management
    • Best Management Practices For Almond Growers
  • Video
  • Supporters
    • Support Us
    • Christi Heintz Scholarship
    • Corporate Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Testimonials
  • MVP Nominations