Over the past seven years working with BIP, I have witnessed, first hand, improvements on the quality of the hygienic behavior in honey bee stock coming out of the Northern California Queen Breeders. Of all the variety of samples we perform as BIP Tech Teams, hygienic testing is my favorite because it means I get to look at the best performing colonies in each of the operations we work with. Over the years, I have noticed a decrease in the severity of European foulbrood, Chalkbrood and Sacbrood virus due to our collaborative efforts with the beekeepers in the program who select for hygienic behavior traits. I noticed new participating beekeepers, who have not yet been selecting for the traits, do not have as much uniformity throughout their selected colonies and those do not test as high overall. But after a few years, these beekeepers are able to increase the amount of high performing colonies and have more uniform test results across the board. This leads me to believe that our sampling and testing efforts are paying off, resulting in stronger US stock and convinced that more beekeepers would benefits from this valued service. Please donate to the Bee Informed Partnership and help us continue to make a difference!
