Abstract
Next to productive performances and somehow direct economic value, the attention of queen breeders is recently oriented back to those c haracteristics which contribute to the increasing o f the bee colonies to the most infectious bee disease: Am erican foulbrood (AFB). It is already known for a f ew decades that the resistance to AFB is hereditary an d responds to artificial selection. The mechanisms that determines it are quite numerous and complex, but o ne of the most important and above all the easiest to be measured, is the hygienic behavior, defined as the capacity of bees to recognize, to uncover and evacu ate ill or dead larvae or pupae (nymphs). It represents a r are type of behavior mechanism of resistance to dis eases and it is considered the primary mechanism to self- defense in facing at least 2 of the diseases of the bee brood: AFB and chalk brood. In the last years, the researches carried out to verify this behavior are truly effective and aren't far to establish exactly the r ole in resistance to parasite. The hygienic behavio r represents the generalized behavior answer to elimi nate the pathogen agents and parasites from the nes t, minimizing the adaptation of specific pathogen agen ts to the adult bees' genotypes.
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