Selecting and producing virus-resistant honey bees

Selecting and producing virus-resistant honey bees: Ensuring food security improvingbeekeeping sustainability and enhancing pollination efficiency by reducing colony losses.USDA SBIR Phase I Application to Priority Area 8.2 Health of Pollinators for Fiscal Year 2022AwardProject SummaryHoney bees provide ca. $20B to the US agricultural economy in pollination services and hive products.Deformed wing virus (DWV) is a principal pathogen of honey bees reducing lifespans and colonymortality. This project connects a commercial honey bee breeder with new technologies for breedingvirus-resistant honey bee stock. Specifically a lab-based assay using viruses tagged with a luminescentprobe can swiftly identify breeding stock that resists virus infection. This project will screen existinghoney bee breeding lines by testing the viral resistance of (haploid) male bees. Bees with extremeresistance will provide semen for artificial insemination of queen breeding stock. Two generations ofdirected breeding will result in stably resistant lineages that can be used as commercial breeder queens.The method should also provide viral resistance to other important bee viruses and regardless offers aplausible tool for disease mitigation generally. Nevertheless certified queens that resist this onedevastating virus have a market potential of up to $5M annually.