Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support (a) native and (b) varroa-tolerant bee breeding programmes in England.

Developing varroa-tolerant bees through selective breeding is likely to be very difficult as it requires geographic isolation or artificial insemination to preserve the resistance traits being selected for, as well as large numbers of colonies to ensure that the resulting strains maintain good genetic diversity. There is advice for beekeepers about how to manage Varroa and queen rearing on BeeBase, the website managed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s National Bee Unit.