Sustainable breeding and conservation actions of Apis mellifera in Italy

Since the end of the last glaciation, numerous subspecies of Apis mellifera appeared in Europe. In Italy the Ligustica variety of A. mellifera adapted to the mild climate and to the rich floristic biodiversity of the territory. Thanks to its favourable characteristics, this variety has spread since 1800 worldwide. With the arrival of the Varroa destructor in the 80s and with the increasingly dramatic use of pesticides in agriculture, the Italian bee is increasingly dependent on human interventions for its survival, both for the control of parasites and for the threat posed by pesticides. More recently, the effects of globalization have favoured in the Italian territory other subspecies of A. mellifera more performing in terms of productivity and resistance to pathogens. In this context, there is an urgent need to define strategies for the conservation of local ecotypes and for their valorisation on a productive scale. The control of matings becomes therefore a major point, and in this regard the BEENOMIX project has contributed to implement a specific selection breeding scheme applicable by any breeder able to carry out a selective activity. The BEENOMIX project developed and implemented a selection model based on productivity in terms of kg of honey and hygienic behaviour with a relative emphasis of 1 and 0.4, respectively. Two partially isolated populations are considered. The selection takes place between 108 families per year, from which the 6 best families will be identified and from which the new 108 families of the next cycle will be produced. In addition, from the best family every year a group of sister drone-producing queens (DPQ) is raised. The drones produced by the DPQ will fertilize the 108 virgin queens (VQ) in an isolated mating site. The mating site is chosen on different criteria, in particular to be isolated from the presence of other drones.