In recent years, hives of the honeybee (Apis mellifera) have been devastated in the States, European countries and Japan by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). It’s a serious matter because we need bees to pollinate crops and wild plants.
CCD isn’t fully understood yet. I’m grateful to my fellow blogger The Creator at Anchors of Reason for telling us about new research which may provide part of the answer. A parasitic mite (Varroa destructor) is associated with CCD. This research team reports that infected bees are different from other bees. They produce more of one of their normal bee proteins, seeming to make them clean their hives more. From the report I’ve just linked to it’s not clear whether this study was done on naturally infected bees or whether they’d been infected experimentally.
This is exciting new evidence about what’s going on in CCD. I haven’t seen any data about whether this biochemical change, leading to this behavioural change, really works as a defence against CCD. Does it have a downside? What biologists call a ‘fitness cost’: change something and often, it’s costly for the organism. As for the possibility of selecting for bees which make lots of this particular protein, making them hive-proud, well maybe that’ll happen.
This is one of those stories so often seen, in which it’s tempting to speculate about what bright future may arise from a new piece of scientific evidence. Let’s not get carried away. But yes, it might be true that people could breed hive-proud bees. I hope so because we really do need bees.
Science on the Land 
It’s worthwhile note that the European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) is native to Europe, Asia, and Africa and was introduced to N. America (most likely in the early 1600s) by European colonizers who liked honey but were completely unaware of the bee’s role in pollination.
Yes, that’s interesting. Do you know how V. destructor came to be in N America? I suppose it might be native there or it might have been introduced when A. mellifera came across.
I’m not sure how it got there, but a brief search yielded this breakdown of V. destructor introduction around the world:
Early 1960s Japan, USSR
1960s-1970s Eastern Europe
1971 Brazil
Late 1970s South America
1980 Poland
1982 France
1984 Switzerland, Spain, Italy
1987 Portugal
1987 USA
1989 Canada
1992 England[5]
2000 New Zealand (North Island)
2006 New Zealand (South Island)[6]
2007 Hawaiian Islands[7]
That’s quite a few introductions, then. But CCD didn’t immediately follow in each of those places. Evidently V. destructor isn’t one of the invasive species which rapidly decimate native fauna or flora.
Before Koos Biesmeijer http://www.fbs.leeds.ac.uk/staff/profile.php?tag=Biesmeijer started to work mostly from the Netherlands, he told me that CCD is a husbandry issue. I’ve heard that it’s been blamed on commercial beekeepers’ practice of moving hives around in the States, following different crops’ flowering seasons. After what you’ve just said I think that Koos may have had a point.
[Comment cut and pasted from my personal blog where it was posted after a slight misunderstanding]
Varroa mites originated in Asia, not the US
Honeybees are domestic animals, they’ve been bred for years for certain characteristics. I’m not surprised this is continuing.
I have heard that Apis mellifera scutellata (Africanized honeybee) is not as susceptible to varroa mites. Breeding them with western honeybees is obviously problematic, not to mention they cant’ survive in the colder climates.
There are alot of other problems that honeybees encounter (hive beetles, pesticides, the Zombie Fly Apocephalus borealis https://www.zombeewatch.org/
it’s tough out there for bees 😦 https://www.zombeewatch.org/
oops sorry that was me (squidink)… apologies for posting in the wrong place.
‘backyard’ beekeeping really does have a whole host of issues. not the same as commercial beeks, but different.
You’re my apiculture guru, in fact! I’ll read the links you posted.
I’ve now read your link about the zombie fly (Apocephalus borealis). It does sound like a real challenge for N American beekeepers. There’s more about it at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/01/03/zombie-fly-parasite-killing-honeybees/
Since A. borealis is native to N America I wonder whether it’s been found outside that continent… yet.
I’d like to blog about ‘backyard’ beekeeping. Thanks for this idea 🙂 and please feel free to write about it here on my blog.
In other honey bee news: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19799806
Thanks, you inspired a new blog post 🙂
No problem. I saw the article and thought of your previous post on bees.
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