Mondet Lab

Research focus

ERC Starting Grant · 2022

If you are not healthy you are out: how honey bees develop resilience towards invasive species events with an immune system at the colony level

Honey bees, Apis mellifera, have experienced the full impacts of globalization, including the recent invasion by the parasite, Varroa destructor. This deadly mite has rapidly become one of the main causes of colony losses worldwide, with a huge economic impact on beekeeping. Despite the lethal effects of varroa, some colonies survive infestation. In such colonies, honey bees are able to work together to selectively remove highly parasitized brood, thereby limiting mite spread. Defensive hygiene plays a role at society level that parallels that of an immune system, and the ‘social immunity’ it confers provides the basis for colony resistance to varroa and other brood diseases. How…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.