Varroa Sensitive Hygiene VSH Breeder Queen
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Honey Bee Picture Gallery
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This honey bee queen was bred to express the disease resistant trait named VSH, which stands for Varroa Sensitive Hygiene. This line of bee was developed by the USDA after years of research into how some bees are resistant to the mite, Varroa destructor. The mechanism of resistance is that these bees will recognize that a brood cell contains a mite infested bee pupae, probably by smell. They will then uncap the infested cell which may disrupt the mites reproduction. Or the worker bees may remove the pupae along with the mites, which also very effectively prevents the increase in mite population growth. Read more on Varroa Sensitive Hygiene VSH at this link. The bee pictured above is an instrumentally inseminated breeder queen. This pure bred queen will be used as the mother of many, perhaps thousands, of daughter queens. Specialized beekeepers, called queen breeders, can direct to the bees to raise female larva as queens instead of worker bees. This process is known as queen rearing, and has been being practiced for more than 150 years. |
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