Bee hygiene may not be right at the top of most people's worry lists in these troubled times. But maybe it should be. For, if researchers are to be believed, the future of the world's food supplies may depend on it.
Britain's only professor of apiculture, Francis Ratnieks, of Sussex University, believes so strongly in its importance that he is devoting a research program to developing ''hygienic bees''.
The professor hopes this may be a key to halting a mysterious catastrophe threatening bee populations.
Vast numbers of honeybee colonies are perishing on both sides of the Atlantic and nobody knows why.
The US has lost 70 per cent of its colonies in just two years, and losses in Britain have reached 30 per cent a year, five times the 2003 level.
Eighteen months ago, Britain's Farming Minister, Lord Rooker, warned that the bee would be extinct in Britain within 10 years.
This would matter, as a third of our food directly depends on pollination by bees, which are worth about 1.2billion ($A2.55billion) a year to the British economy.
Albert Einstein is said to have opined, ''If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years left to live.''
Explanations for the colony collapses have ranged from the use of pesticides to radiation from mobile phones interfering with the bees' navigational systems. But most scientists suspect disease or parasites, such as varroa mites. And this is where Professor Ratnieks comes in. ''Bees have their own way of controlling disease through hygiene,'' he says.
Male bees patrol the hives evicting dead or infected larvae and pupae. But the practice takes place in only 10 per cent of British hives, and only some male bees carry it out. So the professor puts tiny numbers on bees to identify them, and notes which ones do the job. He then tests them genetically to find out who fathered them, as queen bees mate with some 10 males. He next finds their sisters, female bees from the same father, and rears them as queens.
As he explains in a forthcoming issue of the journal Heredity, the right gene is passed on in the queen's offspring and the colonies become twice as hygienic. He is now planning to provide his ''hygienic queens'' to beekeepers.
''It's apiarian supremacy,'' muttered one observer.
But Professor Ratnieks may prefer the Scouts' motto: ''Bee prepared''. Independent