As most of you know, I’m enamored with learning about drones - male honey
bees, not the small flying machines. I truly believe that you can’t have a
great queen without some awesome drones. With all the attention given to
queens, drones are often taken for granted and forgotten. However, since the
promiscuous queen mates with 15 and sometimes as many as 20 different drones,
they really should not be overlooked.
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| Brandon Hopkins teaching queen breeders about his work in cryopreservation |
Fairly recently, I’ve jumped into the ever fascinating world of
instrumentally inseminating honey bee queens. Having participated in artificial
insemination projects with my sheep, I’ve been taken aback by how far behind
honey bees are in this area especially when compared to other livestock. Dairy
cattle, for example, have seen tremendous gains in milk production by using
artificial insemination and are often able to extend great genetics from one
bull to many cows. Because of this, it is very rare to find a modern day
production milk system where the farmer uses natural cover. Instead, semen from
a bull is collected, evaluated, stored, frozen and shipped all around the world
to use for insemination. Often times, the bull can be dead and still father
calves. It’s all pretty amazing.
So let’s get back to the bees and the associated problem at hand. Due to the
Honey Bee Act of 1922, the importation of honeybees and honeybee germplasm from
other countries was stopped in order to minimize tracheal mite infiltration
into our US honeybee population. However, in doing so, it has also resulted in
a smaller genetic resource pool.
To combat the decreasing genetic possibilities, special permission was
granted to Sue Cobey and a group of researchers to obtain drone semen from old
world countries like Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and the Republic of Georgia. The
introduction of new genetics using only semen can take 5 or 6 mating cycles –
nothing happens overnight in the world of honeybee biology. The problem is that
freshly collected drone semen quickly loses viability when stored at room
temperature – although it amazingly lasts much, much longer than its mammalian
counterparts. Therefore, without a better preservation technique, it was going
to take several trips to gather germplasm to convert a US bee to one that
contains 90%+ ‘old world’ stock by using drone semen only. Although previously
attempted, a technique to collect, evaluate, store, and freeze drone semen like
our dairy farmer friends use didn't provide for a high enough worker progeny
ratio so it was seldom used.
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| Brandon Hopkins is demonstrating some of the equipment used in cryopreservation. |
This is where Brandon Hopkins, a reproductive biologist, enters the picture.
While working with Dr. Steven Sheppard on his Ph.D. at Washington State
University, he recently developed better methods and techniques of freezing and
storing honeybee semen. These advancements are allowing researchers to collect
germplasm from the 'old world stock' and use it many years later. Now, the
honeybee industry can work toward a more efficient stock improvement plan which
also includes a repository.
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| A great group of queen breeders looking to learn new ways to help bees |
So, when the opportunity arose to attend a knowledge sharing session with
Dr. Steve Sheppard and Brandon Hopkins to learn about cryopreservation of honey
bee germplasm, you better believe I jumped on it. I would like to thank the
Mountain State Queen Producers for the welcome invitation. We learned some new
techniques and strategies that will hopefully allow for advancements in queens
in Indiana as well as the Heartland Honey Bee Co-op.
