The first two weeks of July saw the start of sampling of Italian bees for genomic analysis, which will be carried out by performing complete sequencing of about 120 diploid individuals (worker bees).

In this first round we visited 26 beekeepers in the regions of Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Abruzzo, Umbria and Tuscany. Others will follow after the summer.

Often more than one hive was sampled for each beekeeper even though only one individual per beekeeper will eventually be sequenced.

However, we do have biological samples in house from which it will be possible in the future to have an estimate of variability even within herd as well as between herds.