Top Stories - Posted by Brian Wallheimer-Purdue on Friday, November 9, 2012 7:56 - 4 Comments 
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(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Bees fight back killer mites, and win!
Researchers are zeroing in on genes that give honeybees defenses against killer varroa mites. "Bees are fighting back," says Greg Hunt, professor of behavioral genetics at Purdue University. "They're getting rid of the mites themselves. (Credit: Tom Campbell/Purdue)
PURDUE (US) — Honeybees are developing defenses to outsmart and destroy varroa mites, which can wipe out entire bee colonies.
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Researchers are searching for the genes that enable those defenses and say they’ve narrowed the possibilities considerably.
“Bees are fighting back,” says Greg Hunt, professor of behavioral genetics at Purdue University. “They’re getting rid of the mites themselves. We can select for these traits now, but it’s tedious. If we can identify the genes that influence these traits, we could develop better methods to screen for these genes and speed the process.”
The United States is losing about one-third of its honeybee hives each year. No one factor is to blame, though scientists believe that mites and insecticides are working against the bees, which are important for pollinating food crops and wild plants.
Some bees exhibit a trait called varroa sensitivity hygiene, in which they can somehow sense—likely through smell—that varroa mites are sealed into brood cells where honeybee grubs are pupating.
The bees uncap the cells and sometimes remove the infested pupa, disrupting the mites’ reproduction process. “We assume they’re learning the scent of infested pupae and uncapping the cells to see if mites are in there,” Hunt says.
Researchers produced and genotyped the bees that exhibited the trait and found the inheritance of two chromosomal regions from the resistant parent containing genes that made bees more likely to uncap brood cells and remove infested pupae. The list of candidate genes includes genes involved in learning and sense of smell.
“We can start with the genes that make the most sense and run tests to determine if they’re involved in conferring those behaviors,” says postdoctoral researcher Jennifer Tsuruda.
Other bees being attacked by varroa mites exhibit a grooming behavior in which they swipe at their backs and often remove the mite. In some cases, the bee will bite and possibly kill the mite.
Maps with about 1,300 genetic markers were created to look for the genes responsible for the grooming behavior. The researchers narrowed the search to one region on a chromosome that contains 27 genes. The gene Neurexin 1 is a likely candidate, Hunt says, because unrelated mouse testing has shown that the gene can be involved in excessive grooming.
“It raises the possibility that the same gene might be influencing some behavior in two very different species,” Hunt says.
Hunt and Tsuruda will continue to narrow the search for the genes that confer behaviors allowing honeybees to defend themselves against varroa mites. Once pinpointed, the bees could be specially bred and deployed to address declining honeybee populations.
Source: Purdue University
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4 Comments
Eugenia Briscoe
nerf herder
Part of the reason for the spread of the mites is that commercial bees are moved around, and it’s not just a hive or two on the edge of the field, they’ll have 10 or more boxes of hives. Honeybee hive keepers also move the boxes from Texas to Minnesota to California as the seasons & crops change. Both of these practices make it easier to propagate diseases.
Eugenia Briscoe
Hi Nerf Herder
Your statement begs to question. What are the natural migrating practices of bees. I’m told they cannot survive cold weather. However I have seen some that I call mutants (because they are drawn to garbage) in the latter part of the fall season. I live in the city and use to shoo them away by smacking them in mid air until I found out their numbers were dwindling. Now I just get out of their way when possible. I haven’t seen many this year. I don’t feel there’s much I can do. But I do care and I want to help where I can do some kind of good. Like taking what I know to the young people as they will inherit what we leave behind. This kind of knowledge is not taught in areas like where I live. I asked eight kids what do bees do. All but one told me gruesome stories about how they sting you. The one who said they made honey told me a horror story first and ended it with (then they go make honey) : )
kitfattorini
There has been a lot of research about why bees are in trouble and it seems to be pretty clear.
Last year I saw a doumentary on the subject. I believe the film came from Europe.
For information about the problems of biodiversity, bees, GMOs and exploitation by chemical corparations an agre business go to http://www.navdanyainternational.it
A friend and I were talking about pollination and the subject came up regarding the dwindling bee population. We figured man and his quest for fast financial gain in the business of growing food was the problem and by altering edible food plant’s natural growing ability somehow managed to turn the bees off. Thereby disabling the bees natural process of reproduction. Pollinating Hybrids must be a bit confusing and the nectar must taste or be different. No pun intended. I had no idea that part of it was due to mites. Obviously I’m no scholar but shouldn’t these people be looking into why and how mites have developed into such a big problem in the first place. And while trying to figure out how help bees to ward them off, they also try and figure out what has caused this infestation. Seems to me the bees are a lot smarter than we are and they are figuring out how to survive problems we may very well be the source of. I was told many many years ago that you know when change is taking place by watching all of Gods other creatures. And that we are the last to know anything unless we made it happen. And that most things we make happen usually cause a negative effect somewhere down the road. He said we need to get back to nature before we really mess things up. Only He used much stronger language. And I was a child back then. This was before microwaves computers cell phones and color TV.