UVM researchers strive to reduce honeybee mortality

Beekeeper at work

— Photo by Ich -

“Skep Sisters” (encaustic painting), by Nancy Whitcomb.

Edited from a New England Council report

“The University of Vermont recently released a study offering hope for stemming the recent debilitating losses of bees in the country and suggestions for breeding more disease-resistant colonies. Beekeepers across the U.S. lost over 55 percent of their colonies in the past year, the highest loss rate reported since records started being kept, in 2011.

“The Vermont Bee Lab at UVM, led by Samantha Alger, works with beekeepers to breed ‘hardy, disease-resistant’ honeybee colonies by using a test (UBeeO) developed by researchers at the University of North Caroline at Greensboro to help identify ‘hygienic’ behaviors in colonies….

“The Vermont Bee Lab found that the UBeeO testing method detects more pathogen loads than was previously thought, letting UVM researchers use the test to better analyze methods to encourage disease-resistant colonies.

“‘It’s definitely more desirable for a beekeeper to have bees that are better adapted at taking care of their diseases themselves rather than using chemical treatments and interventions to try to reduce these pathogen loads, which of course may have negative impacts on the bees. … UBeeO has been known to identify colonies that are able to better resist Varroa mites, but it had not been used to look at other pest or pathogens. We found this new assay could be used to identify colonies that are resistant to these other stressors,’ said Algers.’’