The staff of the USDA, Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology lab visited the Primorsky Territory on the Pacific coast of Russia in an effort to find honey bees resistant to Varroa destructor. Initially, work with these bees included preliminary evaluations, detailed study of colonies in Russia, importation of Russian queens through quarantine, a detailed comparison of the response to Varroa mite infestations of Russian and Italian colonies, studies of selection for resistance to Varroa mites, resistance to tracheal mites and studies of honey production. The emphasis of the program then shifted from identifying breeder lines to intensifying selection within breeder lines (Rinderer et al., 2005).

Russian honey bee queens were first brought into the United States in 1997