ERBELGEN - Genetic selection of local black bees
Grant Agreement: 2020/2
Project Objective:
- To strengthen and sustain the Genetic Improvement Programme
- To ensure fertilisation between selected queens and drones bred for this purpose
- To establish a fertilisation apiary
- To disseminate the genetic improvement obtained among beekeepers in the Euro-region, using virgin and fertilised queens:
- To increase the number of tested queens.
- To increase the genetic diversity of tested queens
- To strengthen and sustain the breeding programme.
- To ensure fertilisation between selected queens and drones bred for this purpose.
- To establish a fertilisation apiary.
- To disseminate the genetic improvement obtained among beekeepers in the Euro-region, by means of virgin and fertilized queens: Increase the number of tested queens.
- Increase the genetic diversity of the tested queens.
Research team:
Partner Entities:
- ERBEL (Project Leader)
- ASOCIACIÓN EUSKAL ERLE BELTZA
- APIDENA
- UPV/EHU: University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
- NEIKER
Total budget: €87,262 (UPV/EHU: €4,000)
Grant awarded: €31,835.89 (UPV/EHU: €875.70)
Project start: 10/12/2019
Project end: 01/10/2022
Total duration of the project: 2 years 9 months and 21 days
Project summary:
The major difficulty of the Breeding Programme lies in the control of fertilisation, as this takes place in flight, far from the original queen and drone hives. In addition, a queen is often fertilised by more than 12 drones. To control fertilisation, Erbel has set up a natural fertilisation station in Ataun (Gipuzkoa).
At the Ataun fertilisation station, queens descended from selected mothers will mate with Erbel's drones. This method is widely used in northern, middle and eastern Europe.
Similarly, various tests will be carried out to apply instrumental insemination for fertilisation control.
On the other hand, beekeepers in Aquitaine are unable to guarantee pure-bred fertilisation because of the surrounding genetic contamination caused by allochthonous breeds, the Buckfast bee, A. m. carnica, A. m. caucasica, A. m. ligustica, whose drones fertilise queens of local black bees.
In order to be able to carry out pure mating of the queens of local bees, it is necessary to establish a fertilisation apiary to guarantee genetic purity, and for this purpose it is intended to set up a site in the Irati massif in the Gasnategi valley. In this way, local beekeepers would have the opportunity to bring their virgin queens there for fertilisation by local drones.
One of the objectives of the ERBELGEN project is to validate all these forms of fertilisation, and to this end, various genetic analyses will be carried out, both of the progenitors and of the parents.
More information about the program:
