BBKA to fund a PhD project into investigating the genetic basis of hygienic behaviour in honeybees
Published Jan 16, 2010
The British Beekeepers’ Association, which represents more than 16,000 of the country’s amateur beekeepers, will give a £36,000 grant to support the work of a post graduate student over the next three years, in the prestigious Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) at Sussex University.
The BBKA has been calling on the government to ring fence £8 million from the £10million pollinator decline for research into honey bee decline outlined in its document ‘Honey Bee Health – Research Concepts’ published in early 2009.
The BBKA donation will help in the development of methods for investigating the genetic basis of hygienic behaviour in honeybees and particular
- in the screening of colonies headed by queens obtained across the UK for hygiene;
- in determining which patrilines are hygienic and then testing the colonies under beekeeping conditions;
- in developing methods that combine intra-colony selection with instrumental insemination and developing improved methods for identifying hygienic behaviour using observation hives and individually marked worker bees and
- in looking at the use of queens inseminated by single males or brother males in the breeding programme.
Dr David Aston, Chairman BBKA Technical Committee, said:
“The BBKA is delighted to be able to support this work which will not only help in the development of a number of techniques which will be used to further our understanding of hygienic behaviour as a heritable trait and its potential exploitation in bee breeding, but also the implications of this behaviour in the management of honey bee diseases.”
Professor Francis Ratnieks, the UK’s only Professor of Apiculture, at Sussex University, said:
“The support for scientific work on honey bees given by organisations such as the BBKA is vital if we are to carry out practical research on honey bee health and well being. By supporting a PhD student, the BBKA is also helping us to train the next generation of bee scientists.”
The donation will be specifically used to support a PhD student, Gianluigi Bigio, working under Professor Ratnieks’s supervision and with two of the department’s researchers Norman Carreck and Dr Karin Alton on Project 1 of the Sussex Plan for Honey Bee Health and Well Being- ‘Breeding disease -resistant ‘hygienic’ honey bees’. The work will start in March 2010.