Purdue University’s honey bee research lab is seeking bee samples for genomic analysis and has asked for help getting the word out to beekeepers willing to send honey bee workers for sequencing.
They are working to understand genetic diversity of honey bees across the country. If any beekeepers are interested in participating, please send an email to Isabelle Gilchrist at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to coordinate shipping samples.
"The Bee Lab at Purdue is working to understand genetic diversity of honey bees across the country. We want to know which honey bees are out there and how they’re distributed. We're looking for bees from interesting and unique sources: feral colonies, locally-mated queens, long-standing queen breeding programs, and potentially 'Africanized' or African-Hybrid colonies. In other words, bees that aren't just 1 or 2 generations removed from large bee breeding operations. We can also sequence bees that do not fit these criteria for a service fee.
"We have funds to sequence bees from every US State and Vermont has yet to be sampled. We’d like to offer you the chance to take part in our study and send honey bee samples for genome sequencing. Once analyzed, we can return to you a genetic analysis of your samples including ancestry (e.g. Italian, European "Dark", Caucasian, African, etc.) and level of inbreeding in the context of our nation-wide sampling to date."