Cal Poly faculty are dabbling with instrumental insemination of queen bees, an evolving technology that could help with honey bee research to save commercial hives.
The European honey bee (apis mellifera) came to the settlement of Jamestown in the early 1600’s and has been spreading on its own ever since. With farming came the utilization of bee colonies for pollination. The nation now has over 2 million commercial bee hives with colonies including anywhere from 50,000-80,000 individuals.
California has seen huge losses in billions of bees and over a quarter of the nation’s hives in the last four years, attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This is a phenomenon where worker bees abruptly disappear. The causes are debated, but most signs point to the accumulation of new pesticides, viruses and parasites. Populations suffered a drop in numbers due to varroa mite infestations in the late 1990’s. Now, in the managed settings, new genetic lines of bees are decreasing the necessity for miticides and other chemical treatments.
Dr. David Headrick, a horticulture and crop science professor at Cal Poly, specializing in entomology, says a big segment of our economy has to be pollinated by bees. This includes about one third of food crops produced such as almonds, apples, pears, alfalfa and much more. Almonds are most at stake from CCD, with California making up half the world’s almond production. On top of that, commercial colonies produce about 200 million pounds of honey a year. With the loss of bees not only do honey prices rise, but on the wider scale, the price of food crops pollinated by the bees goes up as well.
There are two categories of bees as Headrick explains. One includes feral bees, the bees that find their homes in stumps and abandoned structures, and then there are managed bees. The bees in the managed settings are genetically selected for traits such as docile behavior and honey production. These are the ones facing huge losses.
An evolving technology soon to be practiced at Cal Poly could give commercial bees the genetic edge they need to bounce back. This is the use of instrumental insemination, a form of controlled mating in bees. This method of selective breeding is used to create stronger, more durable bees. Scientists can hone in on desired traits such as mite and disease resistance.
“It’s not too wildly different from breeding cattle or horses or dogs to maintain blood lines, breed quality and vitality,” Headrick said in an e-mail. “It’s like crossing a Labrador retriever and a poodle to create the perfect dog — the labradoodle.”
Though a semi-complicated process, bee breeding in the wild simply starts with the queen mating with multiple drones, which are always in flight. Once inseminated, the queen can store the sperm for the course of her egg-laying lifetime, and from then on her job is solely to reproduce. What the artificial insemination does is take selected sperm and inserting it into the Queen bee in a controlled laboratory setting. It’s used to ensure queens are crossed with specific drones to isolate and replicate certain characteristics.
Attempts to instrumentally inseminate queen bees, a microscopic procedure, began in the early 1800’s with Francois Huber, a Swiss naturalist who was entirely blind. This evolving technology is now in the hands of experts like Dr. Susan Cobey, bee breeder-geneticist at UC Davis. Considered the go-to-gal in the bee society, she’s taught researchers and beekeepers from all over the world. By using instrumental insemination for honey bee queens, researchers can get a better understanding of bee genetics and land on new opportunities in bee breeding. With DNA sequencing, they are able to identify certain genes that can be selected for to help control diseases and parasites. This technology made possible the varroa-mite resistant strain allowing populations to rebound in the late 1900’s.
Nathan Longcrier, fruit science senior, participated in the beekeeping enterprise for two quarters in his sophomore and junior year. He would check almonds at a previous job and said he learned how important bees were to the industry.
“Without bees, it wouldn’t be what it is today,” Longcier said.
During the enterprise, students maintain hive health, rear queens, extract honey and sell honey. Students should be able to assist with instrumental insemination this spring.
“It can really help us take the queens that we like to keep hives that are healthier and stronger,” Longcrier said.
Scott Jeffreys, a lecturer in the horticulture and crop science department teaches the beekeeping class as well as running the beekeeping enterprise at Cal Poly. He took the class in 1979 and says when he began teaching it, he had to put up fliers just to get people to join. This spring, he has 70 students, three lab sections and over 100 European honey bee hives on campus.
Jeffreys is heading to UC Davis this week to take a class with Cobey on using the technology. Cal Poly just purchased the equipment for instrumental insemination, making it one of the few labs in California and part of only a handful of universities to host the technology.
“We are in the process of making this happen,” Jeffreys said. “Since it’s microscopic, it’s a really difficult and complicated process.”
The process is similar to artificial insemination in livestock, but “we’ve got smaller gloves,” he said jokingly.
The hardest part is extracting the semen from the drone.
“Impregnating the queen is easy,” Jeffreys said.
Jeffreys discussed the threat of the newly introduced Africanized honey bee (apis mellifera scutellata), which reached U.S. borders in 1990 after hybridizing with the European honey bee. These drones are first out of the hive and most successful at mating. The only problem is in the managed setting they are aggressive and much more difficult to handle. Artificial insemination is a way to guarantee pure lines of European honey bees.
“The African bee is coming in hard and strong,” Jeffreys said. “Our first line of defense is to keep as many European bee swarms.”
With the managed bees in a controlled setting, Jeffreys argues, the Africanized bees will probably become the dominant feral bee, since they do a better job of fighting pathogens. In recent media, the hype has been speculation about what will happen if the bees disappear. Jefferey’s argues that it’s that a new species will take over.
“I think the bees will outlast the humans,” Jeffreys said.
