Hygienic behaviour of honey bees and its application for control of brood diseases and varroa - Part II. Studies on hygienic behaviour since the Rothenbuhler era

Part I of this review summarized the initial research on hygienic behaviour of honey bees, Apis mellifera. This early work that concerned hygienic beh aviour as a mechanism of resistance to American foulbrood (AFB) has been th e foundation for all subsequent research on hygienic behaviour. In Part II, research on hygienic behaviour in relation to other bee diseases and to Va rroa jacobsoni and in Apis species and subspecies is reviewed. In addition, techniques to screen bee colonies for the behaviour are detailed, and prac tical applications of breeding bees for hygienic behaviour are given. A sec tion on neuroethology demonstrates how modern neurobiological techniques ar e being used to detect the reasons for differences in responses of hygienic and non-hygienic bees to abnormal brood.