Hygienic behaviour
The ability of workers to detect and remove diseased or parasitised brood.
Beekeeping
Definition
Workers uncap and remove brood infected with disease or infested with varroa. The trait is heritable and is measured by freeze-killing a patch of brood and timing its removal. Breeding for hygienic behaviour, and for the varroa-specific version of it, is the principal route to mite tolerance that does not rely on treatment.
See also
Other beekeeping terms
Sources
Sources
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
- The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild — Princeton University Press (2019) · Monograph
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