Chapters authored
Breeding Program Design Principles for Royal Jelly
This research was carried out to infer the genetic value to produce royal jelly in Africanized Apis mellifera L. honeybees with the compilation of data collected from 2006 to 2011. Genetic information of the selected and accessed colonies was obtained using the total DNA extraction techniques of nurse honeybees’ thorax with molecular markers for MRJP3 protein and characterized in Apis mellifera L. From the information on the colonies and genealogical structure were predicted genetic values of the colonies and queens for the larvae acceptance trait (%), royal jelly per colony (g), and royal jelly per cup (mg). Animal model with Bayesian Inference was used from Multiple Trait Gibbs Sampling software in Animal Models, Gibbs chains 58,500 cycles resulting from 650,000 cycles with intervals and disposal of 65,000 and 10 withdraw, respectively. From the predicted values, the colonies were classified into upper and lower. To compare the average of the genetic values according to the genotypes, the average multiple comparison tests were proceeded and implemented in routine PROC GENMOD from the Statistical Analysis System. Environmental effects were considered, time and hive type (standard Langstroth) as having flat distribution and collection as chi-square distribution. The studies presented an increase in the alleles C and D and the alleles D and E—referring to MRJPs—found in the highest genetic value for royal jelly production. Alleles D, E, and C are important when evaluating the parameters larvae acceptance, royal jelly per colony, and royal jelly per cup and, occasionally, it was the DE genotype that stood out royal jelly production. Genotypes DE, DC, and EC are those that should be kept in this evaluation system for royal jelly production, and the other genotypes should be discarded because they had the worst performance for the parameters evaluated.
Part of the book: Beekeeping and Bee Conservation
Improvement and Selection of Honeybees Assisted by Molecular Markers
Royal jelly is an important apiarian product for honeybees and has been used as an important ingredient to human health and healthy life style. Because of its wide use, there is great demand in their production. As royal jelly is a secretion of the cephalic glands of bees and it is produced at a certain age of the workers, it is necessary to perform the selection of producing queens to increase the amount produced. The employment of molecular markers is a tool that can be used to identify the genotypes of the best producers. Among the molecular markers, one of them called MRJP3 (Major Royal Jelly Protein 3) has been used in the Program of Improvement of Apis mellifera Royal Jelly Producing (PIAMRJP), State University of Maringá, Brazil. This molecular marker has been efficient in genotyping queens’ royal jelly producers. Combined with classical breeding studies, the selection of queens assisted by MRJP3 marker has allowed to keep the selected genotypes for royal jelly production since 2006 (10 years). In this chapter, we present the main aspects of royal jelly, the hypopharyngeal glands, the major proteins of royal jelly and how it can be used as molecular markers.
Part of the book: Beekeeping and Bee Conservation