2012 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416): 1. Determine the extent of dissemination and adoption of honey bees with the trait Varroa specific hygiene (VSH) in queen breeder and production operations in the United States. 2. Estimate economic impacts (direct and indirect) on the beekeeping industry of releasing queens with VSH trait via Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) and Material Transfer Agreement (MTAs) to commercial queen breeders and producers in the United States. 1b.Approach (from AD-416): 1. A survey instrument will be developed by cooperator and USDA-ARS to solicit and gather information needed to determine the number of Varroa specific hygiene (VSH) breeder queens distributed by holders of Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) and Material Transfer Agreement (MTAs) and the commercial queen producers to whom they sell VSH queens. This select pool of queen breeders and producers who release breeder or end-use queens with the VSH trait will be surveyed with a print and online questionnaire, using the Tailored Design Method (Dillman). Confidential responses will be analyzed and summarized by the cooperator. 2. Information that queen producers provide on sales and expenses, in conjunction with existing secondary data on prices for non-VSH queens and products and with adoption or usage levels of VSH queens (current and projected), will be used with IMPLAN coefficients to estimate direct and indirect impact from VSH queens. 3.Progress Report: A survey instrument with 41 questions was developed and distributed to 227 queen producers to determine how widespread are sales of the Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) and other lines of queens for controlling varroa mites in the United States, and what the economic value of these new lines of queens is to the U.S. beekeeping industry. Survey results are being processed as they are received.