Queen Bee being Marked and Clipped

This queen honey bee has just been artificially inseminated. She was anesthetized with carbon dioxide for a few minutes for the procedure. While she is still asleep a numbered disk was glued on to her thorax with super glue. This number will identify her and the pedigree of her genetics. Now one half of one wing is clipped with scissors to insure that it is impossible to fly out of the hive to mate if she had a mind to. Probably unnecessary because once they are inseminated their ovaries begin to grow and they lose the urge to ever mate again. The clipped wing also serves as a back up mark in case the numbered mark happened to fall off.

The reason to go through all this effort is so that we can breed bees with disease resistant traits. One such trait developed by the USDA Bee Breeding Lab, is Varroa Sensitive Hygiene or VSH.The bees selected to express this trait prevent population growth of the bloodsucking Varroa mite. This natural trait of some bees allows workers to recognize and remove the mites in infested brood cells. By controlling the mite growth in a colony, beekeepers using these bees don't need to use chemical treatments in the hive, which can harm bees and contaminate beeswax. The development of the VSH bees has been one of the greatest accomplishments of bee breeding, truly a win win situation for bees and beekeepers. Breeding bees to be able to take care of the pests and diseases is an important tool to combat Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD.

Queen honeybee's wing being clipped

Honeybee Gallery Photos

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