How Vermont Beekeepers are using UBeeO to Breed Bees with Dr. Samantha Alger

Описание: Dr. Samantha Alger explains how Vermont beekeepers are using hygienic testing and the UBO assay to breed bees with natural resistance to Varroa. Discover how science and community-driven beekeeping come together to build healthier, more resilient colonies.

Dr. Samantha Alger is a pollinator ecologist and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont (UVM). Her work focuses on improving the health of both managed honey bees and wild pollinators through research, education, and outreach. She is the director of the Vermont Bee Lab, where she explores disease ecology and interactions between bee species, including how viruses are transmitted through shared floral resources. In addition to her academic role, Dr. Alger has consulted on pollinator health and has testified on legislation related to neonicotinoid pesticide regulation.

For the research paper referenced in the talk: Unhealthy brood odor scores predict pathogen loads of several important honey bee diseases, https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/...

0:00 Heritability of UBO across mating strategies
0:34 Intro & what UBO is
0:58 Acknowledgments & Vermont Bee Lab overview
2:25 Key projects: bee producers, surveys, pesticides, diagnostics
5:16 Shift to supporting Vermont bee producers
6:38 What is UBO? (Unhealthy Brood Odor assay)
7:41 Hygienic behavior & freeze-kill assay background
10:26 UBO method: synthetic pheromones, 2-hour readout
13:48 Pros & cons of UBO (cost, speed, reliability)
14:46 Case study with Mike Palmer (metrics, results)
17:12 Early results: lower Varroa & higher UBO in NPQ colonies
18:37 Scaling to more producers (open-mated vs II queens)
22:59 Heritability study results & limitations
27:12 False negatives & pathogen priming effects
30:47 UBO vs Varroa, viruses, and Nosema loads
37:03 Summary of findings
38:05 Nosema results: why it’s interesting
39:08 Lab trials: individual resistance & feeding behavior
44:15 Survival & tolerance advantages in high-UBO bees
46:20 Colony-level defenses (rejecting infected adults)
48:10 Outreach: fact sheets & workshops
48:53 Audience Q&A highlights
1:00:05 Closing thanks & wrap-up

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