RPG: Neuroethological Basis of Hygienic Behavior in Honey Bees

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This is a research planning grant for women. Hygienic behavior is considered the primary mechanism of resistance to at least two disease deleterious to larval honey bees, American foulbrood caused by the bacterium Bacillus larvae and chalkbrood caused by the fungus Ascosphaera apis. Resistance is conferred by hygienic bees detecting, uncapping, and removing diseased brood from the nest before the causative organism reaches the infectious stage. The objectives of the research planning activities are to 1) continue selection and maintenance of hygienic and non-hygienic lines of honey bees; 2) continue development of a more precise and realistic behavioral assay of hygienic behavior; 3) analyze the behavioral response of individual hygienic and non-hygienic bees to sealed cells containing freeze-killed brood and to cells containing larvae infected with A. apis; and 4) explore whether the behaviors exhibited by hygienic and non-hygienic bees are associated with a differential distribution of biogenic amines in the bee brain. Biogenic amines may control the behavioral states and therefore, the response to diseased brood, of the genetically distinct lines of bees. The goals of this research are to explore the ethological and neurobiological bases for the expression of hygienic and non- hygienic behavior and to assess the role of these behaviors in disease resistance in honey bees. Hygienic behavior can control economically important diseases of honey bees, however its expression appears to be facultative. It is crucial to study the relation between the genetic, environmental, behavioral, and neural factors that regulate the expressions of both hygienic and non- hygienic behaviors to understand how the balanced expressions of these factors may confer resistance to diseases. An analysis of the neuroethological mechanisms underlying the behaviors will provide an opportunity to examine how behavioral states may affect the expression of genetically determined behaviors.