2007 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416) Breed, evaluate and develop Russian honey bees having useful economic traits. Advance the understandings of the mechanisms and associated genetic variance in Russian and other honey bees which underlie useful economic traits in honey bees, such as resistance to Varroa destructor and to Acarapis woodi, honey production, and survival in harsh climates, with the goal of developing improved methods to select stocks of honey bees. Advance the understanding of genetic variance which underlies the variance in honey bee pollination abilities with the goal of producing honey bee stocks improved in their value as pollinators. Develop marker-assisted breeding and stock identification tools and exploit the potential of the sequenced honey bee genome. 1b.Approach (from AD-416) Using a unit designed breeding procedure we will continue to breed Russian honey bee stock for increased mite resistance, honey production, and winter survival. Russian and other stock will be studied to identify specific mechanisms of resistance to parasitic mites and small hive beetle and to find traits that are associated with enhanced pollinator quality. Using Quantitative Trait Loci analysis in association with knowledge provided by the sequencing of the honey bee genome, genetic molecular analysis will be used to identify specific genes having important economic impact on honey bee phenotype, strategies to employ these genes in marker assisted breeding will be developed 3.Progress Report A subordinate project is a cooperative program with Texas A&M University to develop a more accessible and informative representation of the honey bee genome. Scaffolds and contigs for chromosomes/groups of the A. mellifera genome were manually joined to form superscaffolds. All sequence features are displayed according to their position on the chromosomes. Varroa destructor, an external parasitic mite of the honey bee, is the most significant production problem for the nation’s beekeeping industry. Varroa mites have spread to all the mainland states since they were first discovered in North America nearly 20 years ago. Mites spread rapidly between colonies, and infested colonies historically died. Infestation debilitates colonies to the degree that production losses occur in the first year of infestation. Losses include the colonies themselves, lost honey production and pollination, costs associated with the time and labor required to replace colonies, and costs of acaricides and their application. Mites develop resistance to chemicals quickly, and few chemicals are registered and available for mite control. Some beekeeping areas have mite populations that are resistant to the acaricides commonly used for mite control. A second imported parasitic mite, Acarapis woodi, is the number two production problem for the beekeeping industry. This mite infests the respiratory tracheae of adult honey bees and by feeding and interfering with respiration, debilitates and kills individual worker bees. Cumulative effects are often most intense in honey bee colonies during the winter when they can cause the death of significant numbers of colonies. A third colony pest, the small hive beetle (SHB), Aethina tumida, has killed many colonies since its discovery in the United States in 1998. Larval SHB damage colonies as they feed on bee brood, pollen and honey. Strong colonies can be overwhelmed by high levels of SHB infestation. To reduce SHB infestations, coumaphos and permethrin are used as a colony treatment and soil drench, respectively. However, these chemicals provide only partial control. A fourth problem area is crop pollination. Beekeeping losses because of parasitic mites have resulted in fewer beekeepers and fewer colonies of honey bees nationwide. Concurrently, populations of feral honey bees have declined dramatically because of mite parasitism. This has resulted in an increased need for rental colonies to pollinate crops. Changing agricultural practices, including new plant varieties and species, require continual examination of current pollination requirements to assure optimum production of seed, fruit, vegetable, oil and fiber crops. 4.Accomplishments In addition to selection and maintenance of Russian honey bees and the annual release of breeder queen lines to industry through a CRADA holder, all queen lines were multiply distributed to 13 members of the Russian Queen Breeders Association in cooperation with the CRADA holder. The distributed queens and their daughters will be used as drone sources in the coming year to produce multiple queens of each line. At that point, Russian queen breeders will begin the selection and maintenance of all the 18 lines of Russian honey bees. Low growth of varroa populations in Russian bee colonies is regulated by a variety of mechanisms. Three seasons of evaluation of population growth of varroa mites found growth rates in Russian colonies that consistently were manifold lower than those in Italian colonies. This slower growth rate was supported by lower percentages of infested worker and drone brood cells, lower frequency of brood cells infested with multiple mites, lower mite reproduction and an extended phoretic period. Worker flight activity of Russian and Italian honey bees is equal during both blueberry and almond pollination. Comparative experiments showed that both Italian and Russian colonies had equivalent foraging during almond and blueberry pollination that was similarly influenced by colony size, temperature, and time of day. Russian and varroa sensitive hygienic honey bees selectively uncap varroa infested brood cells. Comparisons of uncapped brood cells, neighboring cells and random cells indicated that uncapped cells showed higher rates of infestations than other cells, especially in more highly infested colonies. 5.Significant Activities that Support Special Target Populations Almost every beekeeper in the United States and many crop growers that benefit from pollination by honey bees are members of target populations. The release of Russian breeding stock, an annual field day for beekeepers and attendance at industry meetings to report results of research that can be directly used in honey bee management. 6.Technology Transfer Number of new CRADAs and MTAs 1 Number of active CRADAs and MTAs 2 Number of web sites managed 1 Number of non-peer reviewed presentations and proceedings 12 Number of newspaper articles and other presentations for non-science audiences 5 Review Publications Danka, R.G., Sylvester, H.A., Boykin, D. 2006. Environmental influences on Flight Activity of USDA-ARS Russian and Italian Stocks of Honey Bees During Almond Pollination. Journal of Economic Entomology 99(5):1565-1570. Arias, C., Rinderer, T.E., Sheppard, W.S. 2006. Further characterization of honey bees from the iberian peninsula by allozyme, morphometric and mtdna haplotype analyses. Journal of Apicultural Research 45(4):188-196 De Guzman, L.I., Rinderer, T.E., Frake, A.M. 2007. Growth of varroa destructor (acari: varroidae) populations in russian honey bee (hymenoptera: apidae) colonies. Annuals of the Entomological Society of America 100(2):187-195 Danka, R.G., Beaman, G.D. 2007. Flight activity of usda-ars honey bees during lowbush blueberry pollination in maine. Journal of Economic Entomology 100(2):267-272 De Guzman, L.I., Frake, A.M. 2007. Temperature Effects on the Life History of Aethina tumida (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae). Journal of Apicultural Research 46(2):88-93