Bees bred for Varroa sensitive hygiene trait demonstrate resistance to chalkbrood disease

To improve health and vitality of honey bees, Apis mellifera, beekeepers can propagate stocks that demonstrate resistance to both parasites and pathogens. Most breeding programs focus on resistance to Varroa destructor mites and/or brood pathogens. Colonies bred specifically the trait Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) have never been explicitly tested for resistance to brood disease. The goal of this study was to test if colonies bred for VSH are both mite and disease resistance. Over two years (2023 and 2024) and in two locations (University of Minnesota and the USDA-ARS lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana), we compared colonies from the POL line bred specifically for Varroa resistance to colonies from a commercial source that were not selected specifically for Varroa resistance but were selected for “general” hygienic behavior using the freeze-killed brood (FKB) assay. We challenged colonies within each line with Ascosphara apis, that causes chalkbrood, and quantified mites, disease and hygien..., , , # Bees bred for Varroa sensitive hygiene trait demonstrate resistance to chalkbrood disease

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.v6wwpzh6p](10.5061/dryad.v6wwpzh6p)

## Description of the data and file structure

R script, and CSV files used to investigate chalkbrood resistance, mite resistance, and hygienic behavior in two lines of bees (a mite-resistant line and a line bred for general hygienic behavior) in Minnesota (2023 and 2024) and Louisiana, USA (2024). These data are associated with a manuscript that is currently under review. The data set contains four CSV files: 

1. from Minnesota 2023 (Carver2023RStudio)
2. from Minnesota 2024 (Carver2024)
3. compilation of the two datasets from Minnesota over the two years (Carver23_24)
4. and from the experiment in Louisiana 2024 (BTRData24)

All csv files are coded to load into the ManuscriptCode file. This file contains all the code used to compare chalkbrood score, mite loads, colony strength, and hygienic behavior between the two queen lines....,