I-Corps: Pheromone-based tool for determining honey bee colony pest and disease resistance

Award ID: 2053175

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a pheromone-based tool for improving honey bee health through selective breeding and management techniques. By enabling rapid and inexpensive identification of pest- and disease-resistant honey bee colonies, this tool has cost and labor-saving potential for beekeepers and breeders, as it is likely to minimize miticide use, and facilitate sustainable prevention and monitoring of pest population buildup. Reduced use of miticides and improved pest and disease resistance may result in healthier honey bees and improved crop and natural ecosystem pollination. In addition, one compound used in the assay was recently associated with ant unpacking, a behavior comparable to honey bee hygiene, suggesting the potential for the development of related products for use in the control of ant and termite pest species. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a pheromone-based assay to predict and improve honey bee pest and disease resistance through hygienic behavior. Hygienic behavior is the ability of honey bees to detect, uncap, and remove unhealthy brood from the colony, and is an important mechanism of honey bee social immunity. This novel assay utilizes synthetic pheromones naturally produced by unhealthy honey bees to induce hygienic behavior. In the assay, a small area of brood is treated with pheromones and returned to the colony for two hours. Early field trials suggest that a colonys hygienic response to the assay (calculated as a percent of cells manipulated) provides a measure of the colonys natural pest and disease resistance. Specifically, a colonys assay response predicts future parasite infestation levels, parasite removal ability, and winter survival, where high scoring colonies have fewer mites, demonstrate better mite removal, and are more likely to survive winter. The proposed research will employ behavioral, biochemical, breeding, and manufacturing techniques to optimize prototype efficacy, safety, and delivery. The project will reduce production costs, assess prototype performance across environmental variables, and provide a proof-of-concept for heritability of parasite-resistance traits identified by colony assay response. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman