Washington State University (WSU) is currently developing the nation's first sperm bank for honeybees, the Associated Press reported.
Entomologist Steve Sheppard and his team are extracting honeybee semen and preserving it using liquid nitrogen. The subspecies pollinates much of nation's food supply and the team's goal is to preserve the stock of honeybees and save them from extinction.
Washington farmers say the state's $1 billion apple crop needs 250,000 colonies of bees per year to pollinate the orchards, while California almond growers say they need a million colonies.
"We [create sperm banks] frequently with horses and cattle and chickens," said Susan Cobey, a research associate on the project. "Finally, we have the capability to do it with bees."
To protect local farming businesses, WSU is developing a way to protect against a potential extinction among honeybees. The biggest obstacle against doing so was preserving the semen long term. Brandon Hopkins, a WSU student, came up with the solution.
Hopkins discovered the extractions could be stored in liquid nitrogen tanks, like the ones on the school's Pullman campus. This method of preservation could last for years and the bee industry is helping fund Sheppard's team in developing the sperm bank.
"We are able to freeze and thaw well enough to make a whole generation of queens," Hopkins said.
With usable samples of honeybee sperm, the WSU labs can breed honeybees that are resistant to harm from the outside world, like mites, disease and pesticides. Such hazards can cause a colony to collapse and, when that happens, worker bees vanish and the entire hive is doomed.
WSU was allowed to import three species of honeybees on a special grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1922, the importation of bees was banned to protect North American bees from mites and other hazards.
Sheppard said the Italian bees are most desirable because they reproduce quickly and provide maximum pollination. The other bees imported by WSU were from the Alps and from the nation of Georgia. The cold climates make those bees stronger against unpredictable spring cold spells.
"This gives us huge capabilities to preserve stock," Cobey said. "We have honeybees globally that we are losing."
