A SNP test to identify Africanized honey bees via proportion of 'African' ancestry

Abstract

The honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the world’s most important pollinator and is ubiquitous in most agricultural ecosystems. Four major evolutionary lineages and at least 24 subspecies are recognised. Commercial populations are mainly derived from subspecies originating in Europe (75-95%). The Africanized honey bee is a New World hybrid of A. m. scutellata from Africa and European subspecies, with the African component making up 50-90% of the genome. Africanized honey bees are considered undesirable for beekeeping in most countries, due to their extreme defensiveness and poor honey production. The international trade in honey bees is restricted, due in part to bans on importation of queens (and semen) from countries where Africanized honey bees are extant. Some desirable strains from the United States of America that have been bred for traits such as resistance to the mite Varroa destructor are unfortunately excluded from export to countries like Australia due to the presence of Africanized honey bees in the USA. This study shows that a panel of 95 single nucleotide polymorphisms, chosen to differentiate between the African, Eastern European and Western European lineages, can detect Africanized honey bees with a high degree of confidence via ancestry assignment. Our panel therefore offers a valuable tool to mitigate the risks of spreading Africanized honey bees across the globe and may enable the resumption of queen and bee semen imports from the Americas.