Recent colony losses experienced by beekeepers are unsustainable, and continue to accelerate, reaching annual averages of 25-50% colony mortality for most parts of the US in 2020/2021 (see map below)

Deformed wing virus (DWV) is a principal pathogen of honey bees, and DWV leads to devastating morphological, physiological, immunological and behavioral impacts that kill symptomatic bees, weakens, reduce the lifespan and alters the behavior of asymptomatic bees, and results in severe colony morbidity and eventually colony mortality. DWV is vectored by the parasitic mite varroa destructor, and DWV has become more virulent and prevalent since the arrival and spread of varroa mites across the US. DWV is the pathogen most closely associated with colony collapse disorder (CCD) and the extremely high recurrent annual colony mortality experienced by beekeepers in the 21ST century. DWV, CCD and elevated pollinator mortality threaten pollination of crops and other plants dependent upon honey bees and native hymenopteran pollinators (which are also affected by DWV). Apiculturists have been experiencing increasingly severe and unsustainable colony losses, with DWV among the most important factors in the growing numbers of collapsed colonies each year. Notably, the incidence and prevalence of DWV, including new and more pathogenic quasi-species of DWV continue to grow and there is every reason to believe that trend will persist.fortunately, beeweaver bees exhibit significant levels of DWV resistance. Beeweaver bees carry lower latent DWV loads and DWV viral titers in beeweaver colonies do not increase when varroa mites are present. This existing genetic resource is a starting point to develop and commercialize queens that have higher and more consistent levels of DWV resistance. We propose a phase i USDA sbir project to develop and deploy a simple, nonlethal, rapid and high throughput system to identify honey BEE drones and virgin queens harboring traits conferring elevated DWV resistance, and then use those selected drones and queens to produce succeeding generations of honey bees (apis mellifera) and honey BEE queens that exhibit enhanced DWV resistance and do not succumb to DWV infection. The project has two major technical objectives: 1) demonstrate a fast, nonlethal method for screening and selecting virus resistant honey BEE drones (drones that do not develop high deformed wing virus (DWV) titers after DWV injection); and, 2) inseminate queens using semen from drones with confirmed DWV resistance and propagate subsequent generations of honey bees that exhibit enhanced viral resistance. The beeweaver population has significant, though variable, DWV resistance, demonstrating the technical feasibility of producing highly DWV resistant bees is within reach. These beeweaver bees are a genetic resource developed by the PI. The target for phase i is to accelerate production of queens with enhanced and more uniform DWV resistance. Beeweaver has the capability, equipment, colonies and mating nuclei to rear and produce tens of thousands of queens and hundreds of thousands of drones to commercialize this strain and sell queens to beekeepers across the US. These genetic and queen production assets will facilitate this phase i project to produce queens that reliably resist DWV infection. Providing queens that endow colonies with DWV resistance, and thus increase colony survival despite the ubiquitous prevalence of DWV, will be further commercialized in phase II and offered for sale to the public at the conclusion of phase II. The end product will be queens with elevated and consistent levels of DWV resistance. Queens carrying traits conferring resistance to DWV will be offered for sale - both to queen breeders (to increase the availability of DWV resistant queens, swarms, nuclei and colonies beyond what beeweaver can produce), and to beekeepers throughout the US to install in their hives, reducing DWV infection and the colony mortality IT inflicts.