Todd Harmer

Without bees, there is no food, so keeping hives healthy is of utmost importance. That job is becoming more difficult thanks to an outbreak of disease and the effects of climate change.

That’s where special apiary inspectors come in, who check on the health of keepers’ bees to help prevent the spread of honeybee diseases and pests.

Marie Cairns, a bee keeper who runs a small apiary in the Cowichan Valley, had her hives checked on Friday by Tara Galpin, an apiary inspector for South Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

“First of all, it was all about the pollination, but then the more you learn about bees the more fascinating they are,” Cairns said.

Cairns has been bee keeping in the valley for nine years. She got her inspection for free, as any bee keeper can, so she can sell some of her hive.

“You have bees and you want your own bees to stay healthy, so you want their bees to be healthy because they fly and bring back disease if you don’t or mites or anything else,” she said.

Galpin is looking for a few different diseases and pests. One that comes up often is the varroa mite, a parasitic mite that feeds on honey bees and causes a disease called varroosis.

“They feed out the fat body of the bee, so it’s like if we had the size of a rat on our human body feeding on our liver,” Galpin explained.

Unfortunately, Cairns’ bees had too many mites. “My first time failing,” she said.

But this experienced bee keeper is unfazed, and will work with the inspector to apply the appropriate treatment.

Galpin says unpredictable spring weather due to climate change—that have been cooler and damper—is helping to spread fungal disease and doesn’t allow bees to forage for food when they need it most.

Keeping bees in good shape is important, as along with other native pollinators they play a key role in sustaining B.C.’s food system, and contribute an estimated $250 million to the province’s economy.

The inspector says losses this year in bee colonies is between 30 to 40 per cent—climate change and the spread of disease keeping the pressure on bees and their keepers.

“More than anything, we need diversity of plants for our bees to forage from and diversity in our food landscapes,” she said.

Importing bees plays a major role in maintaining the bee population across Canada, and combined with the work of inspectors like Galpin, they’re ensuring bees keep food on our table.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Disease and climate change put pressure on bees and their keepers: apiary inspector | CTV News

by Shelby Lawson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Dissimilarity of brain GRN architecture between soldiers and foragers is greater in high-aggression honeybee colonies. Credit: Nature Ecology & Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02090-0

Collective behaviors are present across many different animal groups: schools of fish swimming in a swirling pattern together, large flocks of birds migrating through the night, groups of bees coordinating their behavior to defend their hive.

These behaviors are commonly seen in social insects where as many as thousands of individuals work together, often with distinct roles. In honey bees, the role a bee plays in the colony changes as they age. Younger bees perform duties inside the hive, such as nursing and wax building, while older bees transition to roles outside of the hive, either foraging for food (foragers) or defending the colony (soldiers).

What determines whether older bees become foragers or soldiers is unknown, but a new study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution explores the genetic mechanisms underlying the collective behavior of colony defense, and how these mechanisms relate to the colony’s overall aggression.

“Honey bees do not have a size-based division of labor, like you might see in termites or ants,” said Ian Traniello, former graduate student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, now an associate research scholar at Princeton University and first author on the study.

“If you ask anyone off the street to guess which ant is a soldier versus a forager, they probably will guess it right 100% of the time, because the soldiers are huge. Honey bees instead have an age-based division of labor, where older bees tend to be foragers or soldiers, both of which are dangerous and potentially lethal roles.”

A genome-wide association study conducted previously on a sub-species of honey bee in Puerto Rico that had evolved to be less aggressive in recent years, revealed strong associations between variation in the sequence of some genes and the level of overall colony aggression. Researchers called these “colony aggression genes.”

In the current study, researchers compared the expression and regulation of genes in the brains of soldiers and foragers, and across colonies that varied in aggressiveness. Researchers measured colony aggressiveness by counting the number of stings on suede patches placed outside the hives after a disturbance.

They identified soldiers as the bees that attacked the patches and foragers as the bees that returned to the hive with pollen. The researchers then used single-cell transcriptomics and gene regulatory network analysis to compare the brains of forager and soldier bees, from low and high aggression colonies.

The researchers found that, although there were thousands of genes in the brain that differed in their expression between soldiers and foragers, none of them were part of the colony aggression gene list. However, when they created models of brain gene regulatory networks, which control when and where specific genes are expressed, the researchers found that the structure of these networks differed between soldiers and foragers—and the differences were bigger when the soldiers and foragers came from a more aggressive colony.

“What we think is happening is that the regulation of genes associated with collective behavior affects the mechanisms that underlie division of labor,” Traniello explained. “So, colonies can become more or less aggressive by influencing the aggression level of the individuals within that colony. Basically, a forager may be more or less likely to transition to a soldier-like state if the environment calls for it.”

The findings highlight the importance of gene regulation to our understanding of the relationship between genes and behavior.

“While a few studies have found potential heritable differences between soldiers and foragers, this study demonstrates that older honey bees may have the potential to take on either role,” said Gene Robinson (GNDP), IGB Director and author on the paper. “In colonies that are more aggressive, likely due to increased danger in the environment, older bees may just be more predisposed to become soldiers to help defend the colony.”

Plans for future directions include developing functional tests to explore the role of the gene networks identified in the study, and to identify spatially where they are being expressed in the brain. Traniello says that he looks forward to exploring these new questions.

“We have extraordinary technologies to probe genes and behavior at an unprecedented scale, both with single-cell and, now, spatial transcriptomics,” Traniello said.

“These give us new means for understanding old questions, like the relationship from individual to collective, or the relationship between genotype to phenotype. It’s exciting to be able to take these tools and apply them in naturalistic contexts, and I hope this work inspires others to do the same.”

More information: Ian M. Traniello et al, Single-cell dissection of aggression in honeybee colonies, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02090-0

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02090-0

Eric Hedin

A week ago, my wife came in and announced, “There’s a scary-looking bees’ nest in the lilac bush!” Wasps routinely try to build nests around our house, so I was prepared for the worst when I went out to investigate. What I found was a basketball-sized cluster of honey bees — a “swarm.” There was no nest, only a living ball of thousands of bees hanging from a branch.

I’ve never done any beekeeping, but fortunately, we have some friends who do. We had no idea, but apparently a swarm of bees in May on an easily accessible branch is something to get excited about! Soon, our beekeeper friends rolled up in their pickup truck. One pulled on jacket and bee-proof bonnet, set a large container (a portable hive box) on top of a stepladder underneath the swarm, took hold of the branch, and shook it. The swarm of bees, all festooned together, fell in a clump into the box. Or, rather, most of them did. Hundreds of them draped over the sides, which our undaunted friend scooped into the box (with gloved hands), while hundreds more buzzed around. The couple who came kept reassuring us, “They’re not going to sting because they’re focused on staying with the queen.” I learned that the queen bee’s presence is of utmost importance for the thousands of others.

Thanks for the Bees

Our friends extended thanks for the bees, then went home, while we went inside for a belated supper. The next day, I saw a smaller swarm around a branch in the same lilac bush. Here’s the interesting thing. Our friends said that they didn’t think they had captured the queen since the bees were acting agitated, so they came right back over to recover the remaining small swarm. When they added it to the hive with the bulk of the bees, all of them settled down right away. The queen had come home.

Here was a fascinating example of a finely tuned aspect of living organisms that was surely worth further investigation. A trip to the university library and online research quickly yielded multiple sources of information about honey bees from specialists of all types. As I’ve read up on bee behavior and their life cycles, a striking picture appears of ingenious design in living systems.

Natural Engineering

A recent research article reported on the use of x-ray microscopy to provide three-dimensional, time-resolved details on how bees manufacture their iconic honeycomb structure. Several observations from the authors are worth mentioning:¹

Honeycomb is one of nature’s best engineered structures.

Engineers recognize design, and never has good human-level engineering come about by anything other than intelligent design.

Honeycomb is a structure that has both fascinated and inspired humans for millennia, including serving as inspiration for many engineering structures. It is a multifunctional structure that acts as a store for food, a nursery for developing honey bee brood, and a physical structure upon which honey bees live. It is constructed of wax produced by bees in specialized glands in their abdomen. Wax is an expensive commodity and so comb construction can be quite costly for a honey bee colony. Honeycomb is constructed in such a way to minimize wax consumption.

Honeycomb construction is optimized to serve multiple purposes for the bee colony, subject to the constraint of material and labor costs. Sounds like the bees are a responsible engineering firm.

The ability of bees to “know” how to manufacture the structurally optimal hexagonal-packed honeycomb is even more amazing when one considers that the worker bees constructing it hatched less than three weeks earlier.

While not a perfect analogy, a colony of bees may be compared to a multicellular living organism. Each member of the colony seems to know what to do at each stage of its life for the good of the whole “organism.” An isolated bee will soon die, even if supplied with nutrients, suggesting that it is designed to function as part of the whole.

Arranged by a Designer

We could say that the whole honey bee colony is greater than just the sum of its individual members. This state of affairs usually arises when the individual components of a complex system are specifically arranged by a designer to accomplish a predetermined purpose. Consider any complex electrical or mechanical device. All of the components of my laptop would make a fascinating pile if laid out on a table; but they’re even more fascinating when assembled and functioning together as a whole, according to their designed purpose.

A professor of entomology at Iowa State University, studying the behavior of honey bee colonies, writes:

Each bee appears to specialize, for a time at least, on a particular job. Thinking about this, you may decide that a single bee is somewhat like a single cell of your own body. The work force in charge of a particular job, such as feeding larvae, would then correspond to one of your tissues. And if you follow this analogy further, you may conclude that a colony of honey bees is like an organism — a superorganism.²

Aspects of an organism that manifest in a honey bee colony include caring for developing larvae, securing and processing nutrients (similar to metabolism), tending the queen (whose presence coordinates the behavior of the entire colony), guarding the hive and patrolling for intruders (similar to an immune system), temperature regulation (fanning their wings to cool the hive, clustering and vibrating their wings to heat the cluster of bees), growth of the whole colony in terms of the number of individual bees, reproduction of the “organism” (resulting in the phenomenon of the honey bee swarm), coordination of activities mediated by a variety of communication channels, and a sense of purpose.

Observers of complex, functional systems, whether nonliving or alive, rationally conclude that, “If something works, it’s not happening by accident.”³

Beyond Mere Survival

The honey bee colony “works” and accomplishes a purpose beyond mere survival. It diligently stockpiles nectar which its workers convert to honey in amounts exceeding its needs.⁴ Honey’s unique ingredients give it value as a food source for humans that has been recognized for millennia.

The high total sugar concentration [primarily fructose and glucose, with a smaller amount of sucrose] in honey is beneficial in that most yeasts cannot ferment in it. Also, together with one other constituent (glucose oxidase), it gives the honey antimicrobial properties, and it can be stored safe from spoilage…⁵

Beyond the direct production of honey for our use, the role of honeybees as pollinators is of critical importance in agriculture:

Bees and other pollinators play a critical role in our food production system. More than 100 U.S. grown crops rely on pollinators. The added revenue to crop production from pollinators is valued at $18 billion.⁶

Continuing to ponder bee behavior, comments made by Professor Richard Trump of Iowa State University are instructive:

If a honey bee, with her microbrain, knows what she is doing, this is cause for wonder. If she does not know — if she is fully programmed by those sub-microchips of DNA that come to her as a legacy from her ancestors — this is even greater cause for wonder. It is incredible.⁷

Here are a couple of examples that may cause us to wonder how bees know how to do what they do. Researchers have found that bees possess an internal organic timer, which in conjunction with an awareness of the rotation of the Earth, allows them to efficiently time their foraging activities to arrive at flowers when pollen sources are at their peak.

The famous “waggle dance” that a scout bee performs back at the hive after discovering a food source communicates to other bees (by touching, since the inside of the hive is dark) both the distance and the direction of the food in relation to the current position of the sun. Bee keepers have found that if they reorient the honeycomb on which the bee is dancing, the undaunted bee will adapt its dance so that it still correctly communicates the proper direction to the food source.⁸ Sometimes the dancing scout bee will continue its dance for more than an hour, and over this time, the position of the sun has changed. In response, the bee will compensate for the sun’s movement across the sky by gradually adjusting the angle of its dance.

How Many Lines of Code?

If humans tried to duplicate the capabilities of honey bees by building and programming mini-robots that could fly, how many lines of code would have to be written and executed to make an artificial bee? We can also ask what the likelihood is of all this coded information arising from unguided natural processes. Someone committed to the evolutionary paradigm might answer that any genomic changes that offered a survival advantage would’ve been locked in by the ratchet-like mechanism of natural selection until primitive bee ancestors evolved into the complex, coordinated colonies of honey bees seen today.

Systems engineer Steve Laufmann, co-author of the recent book Your Designed Body, addresses the engineering hurdles facing any proposed evolutionary explanation:

…when evolutionary biologists hypothesize about small and apparently straightforward changes to a species during its evolutionary history, the biologists tend to skip both the thorny engineering details of what’s necessary to make the system work, and the bigger picture of how any system change has to be integrated with all the other systems it interacts with. The result is that biologists tend to massively underestimate the complexities involved.

And here’s the rub: if they’ve massively underestimated those complexities, then they’ve massively underestimated the challenge for any gradual, materialistic evolutionary process to build up these systems a little bit at a time while maintaining coherence and function. 

1. 324-325

The difficulties outlined by Laufmann are in the context of the human body, but they apply equally well to the complexities of a colony of honey bees. Bee keepers are all too aware of the precarious balance between life and death throughout a single year for a colony of bees. Engineers know that making changes to a delicately balanced complex functional system, even small ones, have a way of upsetting the balance — not towards better function but towards failure and collapse.

Honey bees offer us a glimpse of a remarkable living system involving interdependent, communally cooperative behavior. In some ways, they outshine the best in conscious human attempts to build a thriving society.  Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from the humble bee.

Notes

1. Rahul Franklin, Sridhar Niverty, Brock A. Harpur, Nikhilesh Chawla, “Unraveling the Mechanisms of the Apis mellifera Honeycomb Construction by 4D X-ray Microscopy,” Advanced Materials, Vol. 34, Issue 42, Oct. 20, 2022.
2. Richard F. Trump, Bees and Their Keepers, (Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA, 1987).
3. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/12/caltech-finds-amazing-role-for-noncoding-dna/
4. How do bees make honey? From the hive to the pot | Live Science(accessed 5/28/2023).
5. Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile, Beekeeper’s Handbook, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998).
6. 25.2020 (usda.gov).
7. Trump, Bees and Their Keepers, p. 78.
8. Trump, Bees and Their Keepers, pp. 80-1.

ERIC HEDIN

Eric R. Hedin earned his doctorate in experimental plasma physics from the University of Washington, and conducted post-doctoral research at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He has taught physics and astronomy at Taylor University and Ball State University in Indiana, and at Biola University in Southern California. At Ball State, his research interests focused on computational nano-electronics and higher-dimensional physics. His BSU course, The Boundaries of Science, attracted national media attention. Dr. Hedin’s recent book, Canceled Science: What Some Atheists Don’t Want You to See, highlights scientific evidence pointing to design.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Natural Engineering in Honey Bee Lifestyle | Evolution News

This chart shows the estimated share of bee keepers’ colonies lost in the United States from 2016-17 to 2022-23.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Chart: U.S. Honeybees Suffer Second Deadliest Season on Record | Statista

The website site lists many supposed positive attributes of the product, but they have not been proven or vetted.

Before you consider ordering this product, please check with your State or Regional Apiarist and State Pesticide Regulatory Agency.  The National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC; http://npic.orst.edu/mlr.html) provides contact number for State Pesticide Regulatory agencies.

Links:

Previous years: https://beeinformed.org/citizen-science/loss-and-management-survey/

BIP website: https://beeinformed.org/

Bee Lab at Auburn University: https://linktr.ee/auburnbees

Bee Lab at University of Maryland: https://www.umdbeelab.com/

Survey question previews: https://beeinformed.org/citizen-science/loss-and-management-survey/

To read the rest of the Preliminary Results, go to Bee Informed Partnership’s website: https://beeinformed.org/

By Bhavana Kunkalikar Reviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLM

In a recent study published in the Nutrients journal, researchers evaluated using bee pollen as a nutrient source. The study focused on understanding bee pollens’ nutrient richness and possible role in the pathophysiological mechanisms linked to imbalanced nutrient levels.

Study: Translational Research on Bee Pollen as a Source of Nutrients: A Scoping Review from Bench to Real World. Image Credit: TippaPatt/Shutterstock.com

Background

Healthy nutrition is becoming increasingly important in the field of biomedical sciences. The role of nutritional deficiencies and imbalances in causing global public health issues, including cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, has been extensively proven.

Bee pollen has been identified as a potential aid in reducing health issues through nutritional interventions. Bee pollen is currently under extensive study and is a highly nutritious and well-balanced source of nutrients.

About the study

In the present study, researchers explored evidence supporting bee pollen (BP) usage as a nutrient source.

A scoping review was conducted to evaluate the existing evidence on the nutritional benefits of BP in both standard and pathophysiological environments. The team employed available data to assess the evidence, identify areas lacking knowledge, and create recommendations for future study.

Effective strategies have been developed, and efforts have been made to establish standards for framing, normalizing, and reporting conditions and achievements.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines checklist, which was developed based on the Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of health research (EQUATOR) group’s approaches and released in 2018, is one of the recommended guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

The focus was primarily on publications released within the past four years. The initial literature research revealed that there was repetition among bioactivity-related parameters studied for BP. Two previous general reviews involving BP were published before 2020.

Scientific data for analysis were gathered from various international databases specializing in medical and pharmaceutical fields, including PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The team initially searched using the term “bee pollen” to identify relevant publications.

Results

The team found that BP is a nutrient-rich food source containing proteins, minerals, vitamins, unsaturated fatty acids, and oligo-elements. It is also low in calories and generally well-tolerated and safe, except for the possibility of allergic responses or external pollution, which can be managed and predicted.

Hazards associated with BP can result from external contamination, which can significantly impact pollen due to its sensitivity or from unfavorable storage and processing conditions.

Documenting pollen composition and considering patient sensitivity can prevent allergic responses to the product. Additionally, BP is safe for most physiological situations, including among children, the elderly, and recovering patients. BP is a valuable source of essential elements for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

A study of 27 commercial BP samples found that consuming 40 g of the product daily while breastfeeding can provide a significant portion of daily copper, manganese, iron, and selenium needs.

A review of over 100 published studies found that the primary components of BP, listed in order of weight or weight importance, are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, ash, fibers, and other elements. The presence of polyols in the carbohydrate matrix contributes to its lower caloric value and helps maintain a balanced intake of energy sources and other nutrients.

BP’s rich composition makes it ideal for human nutrition, as it can help rebalance or prevent various nutritional deficiencies along with pathophysiological conditions.

The most extensively researched characteristic of BP is its antioxidant activity. Furthermore, the significance of BP usage lies in its potential as an anti-inflammatory agent.

The activity of bee pollen composition varies greatly depending on various factors such as plant and bee species, geographical region, timing, soil type, processing, and environmental conditions. Comparative studies have found that multi-floral pollens have stronger antioxidant activity than mono-floral pollens.

BP has significant anti-inflammatory effects on various types of inflammation, such as localized and systemic forms like digestive wall inflammations and neuroinflammation.

BP’s anti-inflammatory potential has been extensively researched, with different experimental studies highlighting various mechanisms.

The anti-inflammatory phytochemicals found in BP, including polyphenols, as well as other phytonutrients such as peptides, lipids, polysaccharides, and other compounds, have been linked to these activities.

Additionally, the team noted that the anti-inflammatory activity of BP varies based on bee species, in addition to differences based on botanical origin.

Conclusion

Overall, the study findings suggested that addressing the gaps identified in their study is crucial for improving research on BP.

The researchers recommend utilizing high-throughput technologies like omics sciences and computational-based simulation techniques to analyze the vast and diverse data.

Journal reference:

• Kacemi, R. and Campos, M. (2023) “Translational Research on Bee Pollen as a Source of Nutrients: A Scoping Review from Bench to Real World”, Nutrients, 15(10), p. 2413. doi: 10.3390/nu15102413. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/10/2413

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Use of bee pollen as a nutrient source (news-medical.net)

by Scarlett Howard, Alexander Mikheyev, Emily Remnant, Simon Tierney and Théotime Colin, The Conversation

Credit: Théotime Colin, Author provided Varroa mites—notorious honey bee parasites—have recently reached Australian shores, detected at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales last year. If they establish here, there would be significant implications for agricultural food security, as honey bees are heavily relied on for the pollination of many crops.

However, while Australia is the last continent to be invaded by the mite, it has an opportunity to be the first to eradicate it.

Varroa destructor is a small mite that attaches to bees and eats their “fat body.” The fat bodies of honey bees are the insect equivalent of a liver. Varroa weakens bees, reduces their lifespan and increases the spread of deadly viruses.

Scientists need to be ready: this might be Australia’s best chance to collect important data on the spread and evolution of this parasite. Our new paper published today in Biology Letters outlines what questions scientists need to ask and what data they need to collect if Varroa spreads in Australia.

Such data could help us understand how parasites evolve, why Varroa are so damaging for honey bees, and how Varroa mites impact other insects and the environment.

Will Varroa establish in Australia?

Australia is in close proximity to countries that have the mite, including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Indonesia.

This probably explains why invasive honey bee swarms are frequently intercepted at our ports, many of these carrying Varroa. Australia currently bans importation of honey bee colonies due to the biosecurity risk, so these interceptions are typically due to stowaway swarms taking up residence in shipping containers.

Previous invasions of Varroa have been successfully eradicated before establishing, but this time Varroa circumvented the biosecurity surveillance near Newcastle and spread locally.

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries has been contact-tracing and culling hives in contaminated areas, and the spread has been slow so far. Australia has large populations of feral honey bees, which could potentially act as a reservoir for Varroa and are much harder to trace and control, so the department is tackling this with a wild honey bee baiting program.

What threats does Varroa pose?

Varroa mites are a threat to food security. Although Australia has an abundance of food and exports it to other nations, the price of food is likely to increase if Varroa escapes confinement.

Currently, pollination of crops in eradication zones such as berries in Coffs Harbor is at risk due to the removal of all honey bees in the region, which may lead to short-term increases in food costs.

Australia currently relies on pollination by commercial honey bees (yellow), supplemented by feral honey bees (brown), though we have many native bee species like stingless bees and blue banded bees that are also being used in crop pollination. Credit: Boris Yagound, adapted from Chapman et al. 2023, CC BY

However, establishment and spread of Varroa will lead to lower pollination and lower crop production across the country, which will raise the price of most fruit and vegetables that depend on bee pollination.

This could worsen the food affordability crises caused by the current inflation, affecting the ability of low income households to buy nutritious and fresh produce. Almond pollination has already noted a deficit of 80,000 hives in the last season.

Many of the honey bee colonies that pollinate our crops are thought to be feral, living in tree hollows or nest-boxes designed for native animals. These feral bees are not managed by beekeepers and so won’t be saved by the use of Varroa treatments, meaning they will most likely disappear.

To read the complete article go to; Opinion: Australia is in a unique position to eliminate the bee-killing Varroa mite. Here’s what happens if we don’t (phys.org)

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Opinion: Australia is in a unique position to eliminate the bee-killing Varroa mite. Here’s what happens if we don’t (phys.org)

• Steven M. Carr

Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 9386 (2023) Cite this article

• Metricsdetails

Abstract

Figure 3 From: Multiple mitogenomes indicate Things Fall Apart with Out of Africa or Asia hypotheses for the phylogeographic evolution of Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)

Previous morpho-molecular studies of evolutionary relationships within the economically important genus of honey bees (Apis), including the Western Honey Bee (A. mellifera L.), have suggested Out of Africa or Asia origins and subsequent spread to Europe. I test these hypotheses by a meta-analysis of complete mitochondrial DNA coding regions (11.0 kbp) from 22 nominal subspecies represented by 78 individual sequences in A. mellifera. Parsimony, distance, and likelihood analyses identify six nested clades: Things Fall Apart with Out of Africa or Asia hypotheses. Molecular clock-calibrated phylogeographic analysis shows instead a basal origin of A. m. mellifera in Europe ~ 780 Kya, and expansion to Southeast Europe and Asia Minor ~ 720 Kya. Eurasian bees spread southward via a Levantine/Nilotic/Arabian corridor into Africa ~ 540 Kya. An African clade re-established in Iberia ~ 100 Kya spread thereafter to westerly Mediterranean islands and back into North Africa. Nominal subspecies within the Asia Minor and Mediterranean clades are less differentiated than are individuals within other subspecies. Names matter: paraphyletic anomalies are artefacts of mis-referral in GenBank of sequences to the wrong subspecies, or use of faulty sequences, which are clarified by inclusion of multiple sequences from available subspecies.

Phylogeographic evolution in context of geographic distribution2 of subspecies of A. mellifera as inferred from mitogenomic data. Numbered symbols indicate five clades described in the text and in Fig. 2. Dark and light green circles indicate respectively subspecies in the Southeast European and Asia Minor clades included within the Eurasian superclade. Blue symbols indicate the Levantine (circles), Nilotic (squares), and Arabian (A. m. jemenitica) (diamonds) clades. Light and dark purple circles indicate independent A. m. simensis and A. m. unicolor lineages, respectively. Light orange symbols indicate subspecies in the Mediterranean clade. Red circles indicate the paraphyletic assemblage of A. m. scutellata and A. m. capensis, including A. m. adansonii (light red) and A. m. monticola (brown). Base map modified from [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BlankMap-World.svg].

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Multiple mitogenomes indicate Things Fall Apart with Out of Africa or Asia hypotheses for the phylogeographic evolution of Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) | Scientific Reports (nature.com)

Jamie Morton

Varroa mites are responsible for the loss of tens of thousands of hives in New Zealand each year, killing countless bees like this one. Photo / Supplied

A destructive mite plaguing our beekeeping industry may have been building up home-grown resistance to a widely used chemical pesticide, a new study suggests.

Flumethrin has long been a key tool for controlling varroa, but when researchers recently assessed its mite-killing performance at one apiary, they found concentrations of it needed to be 13 times higher than two decades ago.

They say the findings, just released ahead of peer review, warrant further investigation to see if miticide resistance is a wider, hidden problem for the $5 billion industry.

Since being first detected back in 2000, the varroa destructor mite has become the sector’s biggest headache, each year accounting for nearly half of colony losses and costing more than $1 million in mitigation efforts and lost honey production.

The new study, led by PhD student Rose McGruddy and co-authored by Lester, focused on two key chemical pesticides used for varroa control.

They were flumethrin and amitraz – estimated to be used by 78 and 85 per cent of commercial beekeepers respectively.

Typically, they applied one product in early spring, and another in late summer or early autumn.

“Mite resistance to flumethrin may help explain why the mite problem is getting worse,” Victoria University ecologist Professor Phil Lester says. Photo / Supplied

“We’ve heard differing reports of the effectiveness of chemical pesticides, especially flumethrin,” Lester said.

“The nationwide survey and Rose’s data suggest most beekeepers are satisfied with it.

“But there are others who think this product is much less effective than it used to be – some even stating it has failed to control varroa entirely.”

Unlike in the past, some beekeepers were now using more than two applications of it, he said.

In the study, the researchers drew on years of survey data, along with their own laboratory tests of pesticides.

“The key result was that we found that the concentration of flumethrin needed to kill mites was 13-times higher than it was in 2005,” Lester said.

“This result indicates that mites appear to have and are developing resistance to this chemical.”

There was no evidence of any resistance to amitraz, which is another key pesticide for mite control, as it appeared to be effective, he said.

The study team stressed this result didn’t mean that commercial products containing flumethrin didn’t work – and they might still be useful for mite control for many beekeepers.

“We’d also note that the mites we used for this work were from the Wellington region and we can’t be sure that selection for resistance has occurred everywhere equally,” he said.

“But the big implication is that resistance does seem to have developed. It could explain the limited success of control using flumethrin reported to us by beekeepers.

“Mite resistance to flumethrin may help explain why the mite problem is getting worse.”

While varroa resistance to the chemical had been observed around the world, the study team didn’t find any of the same genetic markers of resistance identified in overseas studies.

“The New Zealand resistance development seems to be via a different pathway for the New Zealand population of mites,” Lester said.

The study raised several questions that urgently needed answering: namely, whether such “home-grown” was occurring more widely and, if so, how.

More broadly, Lester felt new products were needed for mite control, with novel modes of action – such as new “gene-silencing” approaches his own group was researching.

“We need to carefully manage resistance, by ensuring good integrated pest management procedures, which include alternating control methods,” he said.

“New methods are desperately needed.”

The industry’s peak body, Apiculture New Zealand, also said the study’s findings needed to be interpreted with caution.

“Because there has been growing discussion that resistance to treatments may be an issue in New Zealand, this research is of interest,” it told the Herald in a statement.

“However, although these lab concentrations differ to what was detected in 2003, they remain lower than what was detected in international apiaries with resistant varroa.

“Additionally, we note that the varroa tested in this research was collected from one apiary so it may not represent all regions.”

The group said this needed to be fully tested before any conclusions could be made regarding chemical resistance.

“As outlined by the researchers and by ApiNZ and our experts, the key to varroa management is ensuring the control methods are conducted as per label and rotated between treatment groups,” it said.

“Untreated colonies die. This does not change.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Has the destructive varroa been building ‘home-grown’ pesticide resistance in NZ? – NZ Herald

(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dalan Animal Health, Inc. (“Dalan”), the biotech company pioneering insect health with the world’s first honey bee vaccine, is proud to announce its first product shipment to a commercial beekeeper. The shipment is for Trevor Tauzer of Tauzer Apiaries in California and contains 500 doses, potentially protecting 25 million bees at an average of 50,000 bees per hive.

This milestone follows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) granting a conditional license to Dalan’s first-in-class honeybee vaccine earlier this year. The vaccine is indicated to protect honeybees against the devastating American Foulbrood disease caused by the bacteria Paenibacillus larvae.

Honeybees are a critical component of agriculture. One-third of the global food supply relies on pollination, and healthy commercial hives are essential to secure high crop yields. However, honeybee colonies are plagued by American Foulbrood, with previously no safe and sustainable solution for disease prevention. Overt clinical cases of American Foulbrood are notifiable in the USA and Canada, and the only treatment method to limit the further spread of disease to other colonies relies on the incineration of bees and infected hives and equipment.

Tauzer, also a board member of the California State Beekeepers Association, said, “We are excited about the arrival of Dalan’s honey bee vaccine. This innovative solution will help honeybees prevent infection, avoid treatments, and focus on other crucial aspects of maintaining our bee’s health”. Tauzer plans to sell vaccinated queen bees through his queen-producing operation, Honey Bee Genetics, beginning this year. Queens can be purchased at honeybeegenetics.com

Dr. Annette Kleiser, CEO of Dalan Animal Health, emphasized the importance of the vaccine, stating, “Our mission is to protect our pollinators and promote sustainable agriculture. As global population growth and climate change continue, honeybee pollination will be increasingly vital to secure our food supply. This vaccine is a game-changer in safeguarding honeybees, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of revolutionizing insect care, which will ultimately impact global food production.”

Beekeepers interested in safeguarding their colonies with Dalan’s vaccine can visit the website at https://www.dalan.com/contact or call 844-483-2526.

The honey bee vaccine, manufactured by Diamond Animal Health (Des Moines, IA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Heska (NASDAQ: HSKA), will initially be distributed on a limited basis to commercial beekeepers and queen producers.

About the vaccine

Dalan’s vaccine uses killed whole-cell Paenibacillus larvae bacteria and is administered by mixing it into queen feed consumed by worker bees. The vaccine is incorporated into the royal jelly by the worker bees, who then feed it to the queen. The queen ingests the vaccine, and fragments are deposited in her ovaries, providing immunity to the developing larvae. The non-GMO vaccine can be used in organic agriculture, and pivotal efficacy studies have shown its potential to reduce larval death associated with American Foulbrood infections caused by P. larvae.

About Dalan Animal Health, Inc

Dalan Animal Health (www.dalan.com) is dedicated to preventing diseases that affect invertebrates, increasing profitability and yield for producers worldwide. This platform technology uses transgenerational immune priming, allowing the maternal animal to pass immune modulators (e.g., antigens, anti-microbial molecules) to the next generation larvae before they hatch. Dalan plans to develop vaccines for other honeybee diseases and underserved industries, such as shrimp, mealworms, and insects used in agriculture. The company is headquartered in Athens, Georgia, at the University of Georgia’s Innovation Hub.

Contacts

Media Contact:
Ian Murphy
Phone: (310) 689-6397
Email: press@dalan.com

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230523005569/en/Dalan-Animal-Health-Ships-First-Honey-Bee-Vaccine-to-Tauzer-Apiaries-Potentially-Protecting-25-Million-Bees.

• By SIMON GONZALEZ N.C. COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE

N.C. State apiculture specialists educate beekeepers about better management techniques and best management practices. Photo courtesy of N.C. State University

In the winter of 2006, a distressing phenomenon began to make headlines.

Beekeepers across the country were reporting troubling losses of their honey bee hives, at a scale and for causes not seen before.

The majority of worker bees in a colony would disappear, leaving behind the queen, plenty of honey, and a few nurse and immature bees. Colonies cannot survive without worker bees, and as many as 90% of beekeepers’ hives were being lost.

Stories about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) were amplified with the vital role that honey bees play in pollination and their critical link in agriculture production. There were dire warnings that the collapse of the honey bee population would lead to the collapse of the national and global food supply.

Soon after CCD stories became widespread, David Tarpy, N.C. State University Extension specialist in apiculture and beekeeping, noticed a phenomenon of his own.

“When I started in 2003 it was before CCD hit all the headlines,” he said.

“There were just under 1,200 members of the state association. Today there are nearly 5,000. They had 44 county chapters that met once a month. Now there’s something like 89 chapters, and half of them meet in their local Extension office. We have the most beekeepers in the nation, probably outright but definitely per capita.”

Motivations can vary.

Some North Carolina beekeepers do it for business opportunities, to harvest the honey to sell at farmers markets or to friends, family and neighbors. A few beekeepers have expanded their hives and are providing commercial pollination services.

But just about all of them have something in common.

“Most of them are getting into it because they hear that bees are in trouble,” Tarpy said.

“It’s something they’ve always been curious about, and always wanted to do. It was enough of a curiosity and impulse to get started and keep bees as a hobby.”

Seth Nagy, extension director in Caldwell County, observed something similar in his area.

“When Colony Collapse Disorder showed up and it was in the news cycle, locally we went from beekeepers calling us occasionally to a massive increase in awareness about bees,” he said. “We might be talking to somebody and suggest a crop protectant or a pesticide, and they might say something like, ‘Well, I don’t want to do anything that harms the bees. I know we need them.’ ”

May 20 is World Bee Day, first proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2018. It was chosen in honor of Anton Janša, a pioneer of modern apiculture who was born on the date in Slovenia in 1734.

The purpose of the day is not to celebrate Janša, but rather to raise awareness of the ecological importance of bees and their general health.

In 2022, the good news is there are plenty of honey bees. But there are significant challenges.

“A lot of people equate all bees as being the same,” Tarpy said. “Solitary native bees that are not under the purview of humans are in decline because of habitat loss. Since honey bees are managed they aren’t going extinct. We just have difficulty in keeping them healthy.”

“We are doing research on different stressors of honey bees to try to find ways to mitigate them,” Tarpy said. “That leads directly into our extension work, which is to educate beekeepers about better management techniques and best management practices. That’s where we have our most effective impact, trying to make existing beekeepers better.”

Among the major stressors affecting the health of honey bees are parasites and pathogens, disease agents that make bees sick. The worst of them is a parasitic mite called varroa.

“That’s what a lot of our training is focused on,” Tarpy said. “There are many different options, but there’s no silver bullet. You can do the same thing to two different colonies and they’ll respond differently. It’s about trying to get beekeepers to understand the complexity of the entire issue.”

Other stressors are pesticides and environmental contaminants, things that bees can encounter in their environment that are toxic to them; and nutritional stress, including habitat loss that reduces the amount of pollen and nectar-bearing flowers.

“It used to be possible to be a bee haver; you could have a hive of honey bees and let them do their thing. You’d go in there once a year and take excess honey, and that was about it,” Tarpy said.

“Now you have to be an active beekeeper, because there have been these introduced disease agents that our bees don’t have a natural defense against. As a result. they succumb to them if left on their own. So honey bees really do need a lot more hand-holding these days than before.”

Much of the education component takes place through the Beekeeper Education & Engagement System (BEES), an online resource that offers courses for beginning and advanced beekeepers.

“We built the BEES network to empower the Extension agents so that they didn’t have to be experts in beekeeping,” Tarpy said. “They could rely on my expertise and these online lecture materials to educate their local beekeepers.”

Before the pandemic, Extension apiculture added an in-person element with the introduction of three regional BEES Academies, held in Caldwell, Chatham and Brunswick counties. The academies took elements from the online course and added live training sessions conducted by Tarpy.

“The idea was we would take newer or even seasoned beekeepers and help add to their knowledge, dive into some of these topics like disease management and hive management,” said Nagy, whose Extension center hosted one of the events. “The second day we had some hands-on components where we did mite checks, as well as some things with the industry like hive products and how to expand offerings that could generate revenue. It was just a fascinating program.”

COVID-19 restrictions put the academies on hold, but there are plans to resume in the fall.

Another development on the horizon that will empower Extension to help North Carolina beekeepers is construction of a new field research facility in Raleigh, replacing the dilapidated building that was condemned.

“The state beekeepers, on hearing the news that our field research facility was condemned in late 2020, went to the state legislature and got funding for a new field lab,” Tarpy said. “That is in the works to be built in the next few years. It will include an Extension center so we can start having Extension activities at our field lab again.”

While there are challenges, Tarpy encourages anyone who has thought about becoming a beekeeper to take the plunge.

“Anything to promote bees is helpful,” he said. “It’s a great gateway into agriculture, a great way into farming and local produce.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: N.C. State aids beekeepers with hive health | | journalpatriot.com

Lots of colony losses once again in 2023. There are three words I want you to remember: Varroa, Varroa, Varroa. And disappointingly, the majority of the beekeeping industry is still not using the Honey Bee Health Coalition vetted, accurate and usable Tools for Varroa Management Guide.

Varroa mites and the Varroa Virus legacy will KILL your honey bees.

In order to be a good manager of your honey bee colonies and reduce/stop losses from Varroa/Virus you, the beekeeper, need to be on your ‘game’ and be a Beekeeper not a Bee-haver.

The Honey Bee Health Coalition (HBHC) has the developed the key educational outreach tool for Varroa control titled, Tools for Varroa Management, A Guide to Effective Varroa Sampling & Control. The latest edition can be found at https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/HBHC-Guide_Varroa-Mgmt_8thEd-081622.pdf. It is based on Federal and State registered, legally approved products which require beekeepers to ALWAYS following label directions. This is all you really need to successfully manage for Varroa control in your colonies. To get you started, we will share some overview of what you need to think about and actually do.

In the Tools Guide each product will have the following individual points in a table: Name, Active Ingredient, Formulation, Route of Exposure, Treatment Time/Use Frequency, Time of Year, Registrant-reported Effectiveness, Conditions for Use, Restrictions , Advantages, Disadvantages, Considerations and a link to a Use Video.

Here we are only going to share Name, Active Ingredient and Conditions for Use, to get you started.

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) is a set of proactive, control methods that offer beekeepers the best “whole systems approach” to controlling varroa. See Tools Guide, pages 6-12.

ESSENTIAL OILS
Tools Guide pages 19-20

Name – Apiguard and Thymovar
Active Ingredient – Thymol
Conditions of Use – Temperature range restrictions: Apiguard – above 59°F and below 105°F (15°C to 40°C), Thymovar: above 59°F and below 85°F (15°C to 30°C).

Name – ApiLife Var
Active Ingredients – Thymol (74.09%), Oil of Eucalyptus (16%), Menthol (3.73%) = camphor ( essential oil)
Conditions of Use – Divide wafer into four pieces and place each piece in a corner of the hive on the top bars. Use between 65°F and 95°F (18°C to 35°C). Ineffective below 45°F (8°C).

NON-CHEMICAL / CULTURAL CONTROLS
Tools Guide pages 26-30

Name – Screen Bottom Board
Conditions for Use – Replace hive bottom; leave space below for trash (‘garbage pit’).

Name – Sanitation (bee biosecurity) comb management
Conditions for Use – Possible negative effect on bee population if five or more combs are moved at one time.

Name – Drone Brood Removal (Drone Trapping Varroa)
Conditions of Use – Only applicable during population increase and peak population when colonies are actively rearing drones.

Name – Brood Interruption
Conditions of Use – Need a queen or queen cell for each split or division created.

Name – Requeening (Ideally with varroa resistant stock)
Conditions of Use – Works best with proper queen introduction methods.

SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS
Tools Guide pages 16-18

Name – Apivar
Active Ingredient – Amitraz (formadine acaricide/insecticide)
Conditions for Use – Place one Apivar strip per five frames of bees. Place strips near cluster or if brood is present, in the center of the brood nest. Only use Apivar in brood boxes where honey for human consumption is NOT being produced.

Name – Apistan
Active Ingredient – Tau-fluvalinate (pyrethroid ester acaracide/insecticide)
Conditions for Use – Temperatures must be above 50°F (10°C). Do not use during nectar flow.

Name – Checkmite
Active Ingredient – Coumaphos (organothiophosphate acaracide/insecticide)
Conditions for Use – Wait two weeks after use before supering.

ACIDS
Tools Guide pages 21-25

Name – Mite-Away Quick Strips
Active Ingredient – Formic Acid (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Full dose (two strips for seven days) or single strip (seven-day interval then single new strip for an additional seven days) per single or double brood chamber of standard Langstroth equipment.

Name – Formic Pro
Active Ingredient – Formic acid (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Both treatment options can be applied per single or double brood chamber of standard Langstroth equipment or equivalent hive or equivalent hive with a cluster covering a minimum of six frames. There should be a strip touching each top bar containing brood. Use when outside day temperature is 50°F to 85°F (10°C to 29.5°C)

Name – 65% formic acid
Active Ingredient – Formic acid 65%
Conditions of Use – Use when outside temperatures are between 50°F to 86°F (10°C to 30°C) and leave hive entrances fully open

Name – Oxalic Acid / Api-Bioxal
Active Ingredient – Oxalic acid dihydrate (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Mix 35 grams (approximately 2.3 tablespoons) of oxalic acid into one liter of 1:1 sugar syrup. With a syringe trickle five milliliters of this solution directly onto the bee in each occupied bee space in each brood box; Maximum 50ml per colony of oxalic acid in sugar syrup; fumigation of two grams per hive in Canada and one gram per hive box in the U.S.; follow label and vaporizer directions.

Name – HopGuard 3
Active Ingredient – Potassium salt (16%) of hops beta acids (organic acid)
Conditions of Use – Corrosive—use appropriate clothing and eye protection. Might stain clothing and gloves.

$15K grant supports local efforts in eastern Kansas

Kansas teens are learning how to plan, plant and maintain habitats that attract butterflies, bees and other pollinators. (Photo courtesy of Cheri Nelsen, Wildcat Extension District)

MANHATTAN, Kan. – An ambitious group of teenagers have set out on a path to improve pollinator habitat in their communities, while giving a nod to the important role that bees and butterflies play in food production.

Cheri Nelsen, a 4-H youth development agent in K-State Research and Extension’s Wildcat District, said the teens are learning how to plan, plant and maintain habitats that attract pollinators.

“Many youth know about pollinators like bees and butterflies, but they don’t always know what is needed for attracting and keeping pollinators,” Nelsen said.

Earlier this year, Nelsen and Leavenworth County extension agent Sonya Murphy were awarded a $15,000 grant from the National 4-H Council and Corteva Agriscience to support community-based pollinator projects.

The group includes youth from the Wildcat District – which includes Crawford, Labette, Montgomery and Wilson counties in southeast Kansas – and Leavenworth County (northeast Kansas). Nelsen said 17 youth have received initial training for teaching others; each of those youth is charged with teaching an additional 250 youth about pollinator habitats.

National wildlife conservation officials have put recent emphasis on creating habitat that attracts pollinators. As an example, in mid-2022, the iconic monarch butterfly – known for its bright orange and black markings – was placed on the endangered list, a result of habitat destruction and climate change, among other reasons.

As they move about, pollinators often choose milkweed to lay eggs.

“Maintaining a healthy habitat is important for pollinators,” Nelsen said. In nature, bees, butterflies and other pollinators carry pollen from the male part of a flower (known as the stamen) to the female part of the same or another flower.

Nelsen adds: “We all need to eat, and pollinators also play a vital role in food production (by pollinating food crops). For myself, I enjoy watching kids learn new things and doing things to help the community.”

In Parsons, youth are planting a seven acre plot to native plants. Nelsen said part of the process is determining what type of pollinator plants need to be included.

In Leavenworth County, youth are planning a pollinator garden at the Veteran’s Administration hospital.

Nelsen said youth have also taught lessons at Earth Day and in local schools, and are planning events during the upcoming county fair season.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: 4-H Youth Launch Projects to Improve Pollinator Habitat | Morning Ag Clips

by Zhang Nannan, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of California San Diego have predicted that the presence of Asian honey bee hornets would harm Apis mellifera colonies more than Apis cerana colonies because of their different exposure to Vespa velutina over evolutionary time. The study was published in Entomologia Generalis.

Collective defense is constrained by co-evolution with the predator. In social insects, such as honey bees, collective defense of the nest is essential. However, the potential cascading effects of predator attack on social insects—directly reducing the number of colony members and, indirectly, stressing the colony to reduce its reproduction—are not well understood.

Asian honey bees (Apis species) have co-evolved with predatory Asian hornets (Vespa species) and have evolved several counter-strategies. A. mellifera colonies can respond to attacks by V. velutina hornets by creating a dense “bee carpet” consisting of large numbers of bees gathered at the nest entrance. However, this defense is not always effective.

In view of this, the researchers measured hornet attacks and honey bee colony fitness proxies (number of eggs, pupae, and workers) in apiaries with both bee species but with and without hornets, and quantified fitness effects across seasons in the presence and absence of hornets.

They found that hornet attacks significantly reduced colony fitness of A. mellifera, but not A. cerana. A. mellifera, unlike the native A. cerana, greatly reduced foraging, and experienced higher hornet predation on foragers when attacked by the native V. velutina auraria.

They observed that hornet attacks elicited more guarding and stop signals from A. mellifera than from A. cerana. Attacks resulted in reduced queen egg production, fewer pupae, and fewer workers, and colony mortality in A. mellifera. In contrast, hornet attacks did not result in declines in the same proxy measures of colony fitness for A. cerana.

“In addition to direct predation, predator-induced stress may contribute to A. mellifera colony decline. Our results suggest that a largely ineffective defense, such as bee carpet response in A. mellifera, can contribute to population collapse in a social group,” said Prof. Tan Ken of XTBG.

More information: Shihao Dong et al, Honey bee social collapse arising from hornet attacks, Entomologia Generalis (2023). DOI: 10.1127/entomologia/2023/1825

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Honey bee populations may collapse due to ineffective defenses (phys.org)