By Eric Ralls

Earth.com

New research is shedding light on the remarkable ability of pollinators such as honeybees to detoxify defense chemicals produced by plants.

Scientists from the University of Exeter and Bayer AG have discovered that these insects, which belong to the Hymenoptera order, have a unique set of enzymes allowing them to break down harmful alkaloid toxins found in plant nectar and pollen. This critical trait has been preserved across nearly 300 million years of evolution and is shared by various species within this order, including bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies.

Alkaloids are chemical compounds that many plants produce as a defense mechanism against herbivores. However, these toxins can also be found in the nectar and pollen that pollinators rely on for nourishment.

To better understand how these insects can tolerate such substances, the researchers examined the genes of several hymenopteran species. They found that all of the tested species produce the same group of enzymes, known as the CYP336 family of cytochrome P450 enzymes, which helps them tackle alkaloid toxins.

Dr. Angie Hayward, from Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall, explained the significance of this discovery: “These species differ greatly, but one thing they share is this ability to detoxify alkaloids. We were fascinated to discover this family of genes has been preserved across almost 300 million years of evolution by a whole order of insects with very diverse lifestyles.”

Interestingly, the research also revealed that even species with minimal contact with certain key alkaloids, such as nicotine, have retained the ability to metabolize them. Dr. Hayward compared this to the human tailbone or appendix, which are remnants of our evolutionary past.

To further investigate the enzyme’s capabilities, the researchers extracted the enzymes produced by the hymenopteran species and placed them in a cell-line to observe their reaction with alkaloids. The results confirmed that these enzymes do indeed detoxify the toxins.

Dr. Bartek Troczka, also from the University of Exeter, emphasized the importance of understanding how insects react to specific toxins: “Understanding how insects react to specific toxins is vital – it should inform how we produce any new chemicals such as pesticides and insecticides. To avoid environmental damage, we need very specific compounds that do very specific things.”

This study contributes to the broader attempt to understand how chemicals are broken down by insects and the extent to which the genes responsible for this process persist across insect groups.

Dr. Julian Haas, insect toxicologist at Bayer AG, praised the multidisciplinary nature of the research, stating that it “highlights the promise of multidisciplinary teamwork to better understand the molecular and evolutionary basis of detoxification mechanisms in insects, which will ultimately aid with the understanding of their interaction with other toxins, including insecticides.”

The study received funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Bayer AG.

To read about Plant Toxins go to;

Study reveals how pollinators evade plant toxins • Earth.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: Study reveals how pollinators evade plant toxins • Earth.com

Significant, but not biologically relevant: Nosema ceranae infections and winter losses of honey bee colonies

• Vivian Schüler,
• Yuk-Chien Liu,
• Sebastian Gisder,
• Lennart Horchler,
• Detlef Groth &
• Elke Genersch

Communications Biology volume 6, Article number: 229 (2023) Cite this article

• Metricsdetails

Abstract

The Western honey bee Apis mellifera, which provides about 90% of commercial pollination, is under threat from diverse abiotic and biotic factors. The ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor vectoring deformed wing virus (DWV) has been identified as the main biotic contributor to honey bee colony losses worldwide, while the role of the microsporidium Nosema ceranae is still controversially discussed. In an attempt to solve this controversy, we statistically analyzed a unique data set on honey bee colony health collected from a cohort of honey bee colonies over 15 years and comprising more than 3000 data sets on mite infestation levels, Nosema spp. infections, and winter losses. Multivariate statistical analysis confirms that V. destructor is the major cause of colony winter losses. Although N. ceranae infections are also statistically significantly correlated with colony losses, determination of the effect size reveals that N. ceranae infections are of no or low biological relevance.

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: Significant, but not biologically relevant: Nosema ceranae infections and winter losses of honey bee colonies | Communications Biology (nature.com)

By Louise Franco

A honeybee vaccine, meant to protect honeybees against the deadly hive bacteria, has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The fatal honeybee infection is known as the foulbrood disease, which is known for killing honeybees and decimating honeybee colonies.

The USDA approval of the world’s first honeybee vaccine will allow its full distribution and usage.

Prior to the approval, the honeybee disease has reportedly weakened and destroyed bee nests, which significantly affected the insect’s population in some areas.

Being renowned agents of pollination, honeybees are crucial for the survival of most of the world’s flowering plants through the dissemination of their pollen that could enable the production of seeds.

During a press release earlier this week, biotech firm Dalan Animal Health, a company that pioneers in insect health, stated that the USDA “granted a conditional license” for vaccinating honeybees against the American Foulbrood disease (AFB) caused by the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae, as cited by Business Wire, an American media company.

With regard to the latest developments, it is an exciting step for beekeepers as they have relied on antibiotic treatment with limited effectiveness for too long, requiring large amount of time and energy to apply to bee hives, according to Trevor Tauzer, who owns Tauzer Apiaries and a board member of the California State Beekeepers Association.

Furthermore, honeybees are important component of agriculture, accounting to a relatively large portion of the global food supply that relies on pollination.

In addition, healthy commercial hives are necessary to secure high crop yields.

However, honeybees are plagued by AFB with reported clinical cases in the US and Canada, as cited by the media company.

Vaccine Usage

Created by Dalan Animal Health, the vaccine is considered to be a breakthrough when it comes to protecting honeybees, and a precedent to changing how we care for insects that impacts food production on a global scale, according to Annette Kleiser, the company’s chief executive, as cited by The Guardian.

As of latest updates, the vaccine will be used by the US government and will be initially available for commercial beekeepers in an attempt to curb cases of foulbrood disease.

Despite the vaccine development, there is still no cure against AFB. A number of cases in the past have ended up in using the said conventional antibiotics or killing the infected honeybees.

What is the Foulbrood Disease?

As further explanation about AFB, the Pennsylvania State University in November 2022 states that the American foulbrood is a bacterial brood disease that only targets honey bee larvae, leading to the death of colony in only three weeks.

The honeybee infection is most commonly transmitted via spores of the bacteria, which can be dormant inside colonies or used equipment for at least 70 years.

The disease received its name since it emits a “foul” odor when the bacteria kills a honey bee larvae after receiving the spore-contaminated food from nurse bees when it is being fed, the Penn State explained.

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: US Approves World’s First Honeybee Vaccine Against the Deadly Hive Bacteria | Nature World News

Story by Elizabeth Anne Brown

Bumblebees and other pollinators face many threats, including pesticide exposure, climate change, habitat loss due to agriculture and development, and pathogens that ravage multiple species. But a recent finding may help lighten their load.

A common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) gathers pollen in a field of yellow sunflowers, plants whose pollen helps the insects expel parasites.© Photograph by Bill Berry, Getty

Previous studies have shown sunflower pollen can work like a medicine for bumblebees afflicted by a parasite called Crithidia bombi, a single-celled organism that takes up residence in the bee’s gut and harms their health. But scientists couldn’t explain how sunflower pollen vanquished C. bombi—did it boost the bees’ immune function, or perhaps poison the parasite directly?

New research, published in the Journal of Insect Physiology, shows the answer is deceptively simple. “Sunflower pollen makes bumblebees poo a whole lot,” says lead author Jonathan Giacomini, which flushes the parasite out.

Plant products like nectar and pollen are a treasure trove of potential insect medicines that scientists are just beginning to understand, he adds. “There are natural things out there that bees are interacting with that can be beneficial for them,” Giacomini says. And by making changes to the landscape, scientists hope we can help give bees a fighting chance.

If you happen upon a fuzzy, buzzing, flying creature in eastern North America, there’s a strong chance it’s a common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens). Yellow and black striped with a rump covered in soft hairs, they’re social insects that live in colonies and love a good crevice—they build their homes in birdhouses, woodpiles, abandoned burrows, and dense grasses.

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: Sunflowers make bees poop—a lot. Here’s why that’s good. (msn.com)

• Patrick J. Lariviere,
• Sean P. Leonard,
• Richard D. Horak,
• J. Elijah Powell &
• Jeffrey E. Barrick

Abstract

Honey bees are indispensable pollinators and model organisms for studying social behavior, development and cognition. However, their eusociality makes it difficult to use standard forward genetic approaches to study gene function. Most functional genomics studies in bees currently utilize double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) injection or feeding to induce RNAi-mediated knockdown of a gene of interest. However, dsRNA injection is laborious and harmful, and dsRNA feeding is difficult to scale cheaply. Further, both methods require repeated dsRNA administration to ensure a continued RNAi response. To fill this gap, we engineered the bee gut bacterium Snodgrassella alvi to induce a sustained host RNA interference response that reduces expression of a targeted gene. To employ this functional genomics using engineered symbionts (FUGUES) procedure, a dsRNA expression plasmid is cloned in Escherichia coli using Golden Gate assembly and then transferred to S. alvi. Adult worker bees are then colonized with engineered S. alvi. Finally, gene knockdown is verified through qRT–PCR, and bee phenotypes of interest can be further assessed. Expression of targeted genes is reduced by as much as 50–75% throughout the entire bee body by 5 d after colonization. This protocol can be accomplished in 4 weeks by bee researchers with microbiology and molecular cloning skills. FUGUES currently offers a streamlined and scalable approach for studying the biology of honey bees. Engineering other microbial symbionts to influence their hosts in ways that are similar to those described in this protocol may prove useful for studying additional insect and animal species in the future.

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 functional genomics using symbiont-mediated RNAi | Nature Protocols

Honey ants, are specialized workers of several species of ants whose sole job is to gorge on nectar until they become living honey-storage.

Did you know that honeybees aren’t the only insects capable of producing the sweet, viscous, and brown-to-golden-colored natural product we know as honey? Several other species of bees, as well as bumblebees and even wasps are known to produce the sugary treat, but perhaps the most unusual insect able to convert nectar into honey is the honeypot ant. Belonging to a number of ant species, the most common of which is Camponotus inflatus, honeypot ants are specialized workers that act as living storage for their colonies when food is scarce.

Photo by Greg Hume CC-BY-2.5/Wikimedia Commons

Worker ants feed honeypots nectar collected from various plants until their abdomens expand to the point where they look ready to burst and spill the amber liquid inside. Known as ‘ant honey’, the sweet liquid is regurgitated by the honeypot ants whenever members of their colonies are in need of sustenance.

Species like Camponotus inflatus constantly feed honeypot ants with honeydew and flower nectar. At one point, the honey ants’ abdomens become so big that they are unable to move, so they just hang from the roof of their nest chamber until their fellow ants require their precious cargo.

Most species of honeypot ants are found in dry, desert, or semi-arid regions in Australia, the USA, Mexico, and on the African continent, where finding food sources can be tough, so the production and storage of honey is believed to be an adaptation to survive in these rough environments.

Honeypot ants are such a valuable resource that other ant colonies will sometimes attack and steal them. In Australia, aborigines also prize the honey-filled insects and will dig around for them. In the 1990 documentary Trials Of Life, David Attenborough himself was filmed popping a honeypot ant into his mouth.

So how does ant honey compare to honeybee honey? Well, according to one study I could find, although the two varieties look very similar at first glance, the honeypot ant honey has a less viscous consistency than bee honey. It is sweet, but not quite as sweet as the treat we humans are used to, and has a sour undertone not detected in the honeybee honey.

Another significant difference between the two types of honey is that glucose is present in higher quantities than fructose in ant honey, whereas the opposite is true for honeybee honey. Both varieties are high in antioxidants.

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: Honeypot Ants – The World’s Only Honey-Producing Ants (odditycentral.com)

By Research Communications and Danielle Donham

LEXINGTON, Ky.  Clare Rittschof, Ph.D., is the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her project titled “Signal to Noise: How Complex Social Information Regulates Brain Genomics and Behavior.”

The honor is one of the “most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate education and research within the context of their organization’s mission,” according to the NSF.

The award will provide Rittschof, associate professor of entomology in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, with $1.1 million over five years to study social interactions between bees and how social experiences impact the bee brain. These studies will clarify how social experiences affect the brains and behaviors of humans and other animals.

“There are a lot of examples in humans, for example, where an interaction with a caregiver, or a teacher, or maybe even a traumatic experience has long lasting impacts on mental health, physiology, behavior throughout life,” said Rittschof.  “And one major puzzle is to understand why certain social experiences have lifelong positive or negative impacts, and others are easily reversed. We’re addressing those questions using the honey bee, which is actually a really fun organism to study social interactions — t­­hey have these very complex societies.”

Rittschof is not only providing examples for her students, she’s giving them hands-on experience in a lesser-known area of agriculture, one beehive at a time.

“There are a lot of hooks that I think can grab the attention of young people and provide opportunities to show them the types of careers they could have in agricultural STEM. And so for that work, we’re doing a few different things. One is to bring beekeepers into our research program,” she shared.

The funding through this award is critical for the program’s future, helping to fund undergraduate and graduate students alongside postdoctoral associates. Rittschof has big plans for the program, including expanding into area high schools and providing a personal connection to a career.

“In terms of impact on students, there’s evidence that most students choose a career based on knowing somebody who does that career. We’re developing some programming for high school students where we can bring them on campus for a two day or so workshop where they can meet different people that have agricultural careers and do some networking,” she said. “And then they can also interact with the researchers that are on campus and see that side of STEM and possibilities for agriculture.”

Rittschof recognizes the community of colleagues on and off campus that have helped her achieve this professional goal. UK faculty include Dan Potter, Reddy Palli, Erin Haramoto and Jen White in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment; Pat Sullivan in the UK College of Medicine; Jeremy van Cleve and Robin Cooper in the UK College of Arts and Sciences; and state apiarist Tammy Potter.

“One of the things in the College of Ag that we do is we work in an Extension context with the community. That work provides another large network of people that are really integral to getting research done, and integral to this CAREER award,” she said.

Clare Rittschof, assistant professor of entomology at UK, with beehive at North Farm. Photo by Steve Patton, Agricultural Communications Services.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Number 2045901. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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: NSF-funded honey bee research explores lifelong social impacts | UKNow (uky.edu)

Editors of EarthSky

Honeybee died defending the hive. Image via Waugsberg/ Wikimedia Commons.

Do bees die after they sting you?

The honeybee is the only type of bee that dies after stinging you. Only female bees (of all types) sting, because only female bees have stingers. A female honeybee is most likely to sting when it perceives a threat to its hive. When the honeybee is away from the hive and foraging among flowers, it will rarely sting unless someone steps on it or handles it roughly. So, female honeybees that sting die in the act of protecting their home.

Other stinging insects, such as wasps and hornets, don’t die when they sting you. In fact, hornets and wasps can sting you multiple times. Attacks like these can be fatal, even if you’re not allergic.

The much-publicized murder hornet is not particularly dangerous to humans, but they can destroy an entire honeybee hive in a short amount of time.

Why do honeybees die when they sting?

A honeybee’s stinger is made of two barbed lancets. When the bee stings, it can’t retract its stinger and go merrily on its way. When a honeybee stings you, it leaves not only the stinger behind but also part of its digestive tract, muscles and nerves. The bee dies from a massive abdominal rupture.

How can this disemboweling be beneficial to the bee? Well, it’s not beneficial to the individual bee. But it helps protect the hive. That’s because the bee sting keeps attacking you (and, with any luck, keeping you away from the hive) after the bee is dead.

A cluster of nerve cells coordinates the muscles of the detached stinger. First, the barbed shafts move back and forth, digging deeper into your skin. Then, the muscular valves pump toxins from an attached venom sac and deliver it to the wound. This continues for several minutes even after the bee is dead and gone.

It’s a sad end to the bee (and not fun for you either), but it does make sense from an evolutionary perspective. Because the worker bees that defend the hive don’t reproduce, the only way they can ensure their genes are passed on is by protecting the hive and their reproductive relatives inside.

This is the part of the honeybee that can remain attached to you after you’re stung. Image via Waugsberg/.

Removing the stinger

Because the stinger continues to work injecting venom into you, you’ll want to remove it quickly. Studies show that it doesn’t matter how you do it. You can try flicking, scraping or pinching it off. Even a few seconds’ delay as you debate how to remove it can have a negative effect.

Remove the stinger as soon as you can to limit the amount of venom that enters your body. Image via Extermpro.

Beware of the Defensive Colony

When a bee stings you, it gives off a mixture of alarm pheromones from a gland near its sting chamber. These pheromones excite the other bees in the hive, who will open their mandibles, protrude their stingers and sting anything that moves close to them.

Leaving parts behind

The process of leaving behind a body part as a form of defense – in this case, part of the abdomen – is called autotomy. Other examples in the animal kingdom include lizards dropping their tails and crabs leaving their claws behind when they’re threatened.

When is bee season?

Bee season is variable depending on where you live. It depends on the temperature and when flowers bloom in your area. Bees don’t like temperatures below about 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees C). That’s sleeping weather, and they stay mostly in their hives. Bees are most active in the early afternoon, and have a habit of showing up when you’re dining al fresco. If you have apiphobia, or an intense fear of bees, you’ll welcome the return of the cooler fall air.

Bottom line: Do bees die after they sting you? Only the honeybee dies after stinging you, and only female bees have stingers. The female honeybee dies protecting its home.

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: EarthSky | Do bees die after they sting you?

IMAGE: ALERTED HONEY BEE (APIS MELLIFERA)

CREDIT: MORGANE NOUVIAN

When do bees sting and how do they organise their collective defence behaviour against predators? An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Universities of Constance and Innsbruck has provided new insights into these questions. Their study, published in BMC Biology, combined behavioural experiments with an innovative theoretical modelling approach based on “Projective Simulation”. It shows that individual bees decide whether to sting – or not – based on the presence and concentration of an alarm pheromone. The scientists suggest that each bee has a likelihood of stinging that is not constant, but shows at least two internal thresholds for the concentration of the pheromone: one to start stinging and one to stop stinging. The computational modelling also revealed how several environmental factors, such as the rate of predator attacks and predator diversity, likely drove the evolution of the honeybees’ pheromone-based communication in their defensive behaviour.

High concentrations of alarm pheromone as a stop signal

When a honeybee colony is attacked by a predator or seriously disturbed by a human who – accidentally or intentionally – got too close to the hive, the bees of the colony launch a coordinated counterattack to defend the colony and to scare off the trespasser. An important stimulus for them to start chasing and stinging the intruder is the presence of an alarm pheromone, which the bees carry on their stinger. In the event of an attack, the pheromone is dispersed either actively – by guard bees – or automatically upon stinging – by recruited soldiers. Thus, it carries information not only about the presence of an attacker, but also about the extent of the colony’s counterattack. “The more bees have stung the intruder, the more alarm pheromone has been released with each sting and the higher its local concentration,” clarifies Dr Morgane Nouvian, a biologist from Konstanz and joint-lead author of the study together with Andrea López-Incera from Innsbruck.

To understand how individual bees from the hive may use this information to make the ultimate decision to sting for the good of the colony and possibly die as a result, the scientists observed individual stinging responses of Western Honeybees (Apis mellifera) from three colonies. Using different concentrations of natural and synthetic alarm pheromones and a dummy predator, they revealed that the aggressiveness towards the dummy – measured as the stinging likelihood – initially increases with the concentration of the alarm pheromones until it reaches a peak. However, at high concentrations, the aggressiveness drops back to a low level.

This is the first time decreasing aggressiveness at high pheromone concentrations has been demonstrated under controlled experimental conditions. “One possible function of this ‘stopping’ effect of high concentrations of the alarm pheromone could be to avoid over-stinging and unnecessary sacrifice when attacking an already defeated intruder,” Nouvian suggests.

To read the complete article go to; To sting or not to sting? | EurekAlert! Science News

By: Nikk Ogasa

“Buzz. Buzz. The queen is that way,” said one honey bee to another. “Pass it on.”

Honey bees can’t speak, of course, but scientists have found that the insects combine teamwork and odor chemicals to relay the queen’s location to the rest of the colony, revealing an extraordinary means of long distance, mass communication.

The research is “really nice, and really careful,” says Gordon Berman, a biologist at Emory University who was not involved in the study. It shows once again, he says, that insects are capable of “exquisite and complex behaviors.”

Honey bees communicate with chemicals called pheromones, which they sense through their antennae. Like a monarch pressing a button, the queen emits pheromones to summon worker bees to fulfill her needs. But her pheromones only travel so far. Busy worker bees, however, roam around, and they, too, can call to each other by releasing a pheromone called Nasanov, through a gesticulation known as “scenting; they raise their abdomens to expose their pheromone glands and fan their wings to direct the smelly chemicals backward (seen in the video above, and close-up in the video below).

Scientists have long known individual bees scented, but just how these individual signals work together to gather tens of thousands of bees around a queen, such as when the colony leaves the hive to swarm, has remained a mystery.

In the new study, Dieu My Nguyen, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado (CU), Boulder, and colleagues focused on a colony of western honey bees (Apis mellifera L.), the most common honey bee species in the world. The researchers set up a flat, pizza box–size arena with a transparent ceiling, in which the bees could walk around, but not fly. They tucked the queen bee into a cage on one side and released the worker honey bees on the other. The scientists then recorded the insects’ movements from above with a camera; artificial intelligence software tracked bees that were releasing Nasanov pheromones.

Once the first worker honey bees located the queen, they began to assemble chains of evenly spaced bees that extended outward from the queen, with each bee wafting Nasanov to its neighbor down the line. The findings, reported this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the first direct observations of this collective communication in honey bees. Like smelly bread crumbs, the branching communication lines guided far-off honey bees back to the queen’s location—a feat no single bee could achieve alone.

“A really great analogy is the game of telephone,” says Orit Peleg, a computer scientist at CU and a senior author on the study. “You whisper a word in your neighbor’s ear, and they pass it to their neighbor, and so on.”

The researchers shed some light on how honey bees recruited one another into these scent relays. They noticed that bees in the relays spaced themselves about 6 centimeters apart. According to Peleg, this suggests the bees are detecting a certain amount of pheromones, dropping what they’re doing, and joining in to pass on their own pheromones.

Mark Carroll, an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cautions that the work was done in an enclosed, practically 2D space. In reality, he notes, honey bee colonies are 3D, and they often have to contend with elements like wind and rain, which make communicating more complicated.

But by simplifying the problem, he says, this research offers insights into how swarming honey bee colonies might self-organize in nature. “The next step will be to observe natural honey bee swarms and see if they’re actually doing this.”

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/honey-bees-rally-their-queen-game-telephone

North Carolina State University

Image: NC State University Researcher Alison McAfee Prepares Queen Cells to go into Honey Bee Mating Colonies. Credit: Photo by Alison McAfee.

Honey bee health has been on the decline for two decades, with U.S. and Canadian beekeepers now losing about 25 to 40% of their colonies annually. And queen bees are failing faster than they have in the past in their ability to reproduce. The reason has been a mystery, but researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of British Columbia are finding answers.

Their latest research, published Jan. 8 in the journal Communications Biology, offers clues about what’s behind queen bee failure, finding that when sperm viability is low, the expression of a protein known to act against pathogens such as bacteria and viruses is high.

David Tarpy, a University Faculty Scholar and professor in NC State’s Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, says the study has important implications for beekeepers and their customers, the farmers who rely on honey bees to pollinate their crops.

“Beekeepers have identified problem queens as a top management concern, but what’s causing the problem is largely invisible. Queens go bad, and we don’t know why,” Tarpy said.

Alison McAfee, a postdoctoral scientist at NC State and UBC, was the study’s lead author. She explained that to have a healthy hive, honey bees depend on a healthy queen, the only female bee in a colony that can reproduce.

The queen mates with many males, but only early in life, storing all the sperm that she’ll use in her lifetime in her spermatheca, an abdominal organ that looks like a tiny pearl. When the sperm begin to die, the queen can’t produce as many fertilized eggs. That causes the colony’s population to decline.

“Queens have the potential to live for five years, but these days, half the time queens (in managed honey bee colonies) are replaced within their first six months because they are failing,” McAfee said. “If a beekeeper is really lucky, a queen might live two years. Beekeepers need answers about why their queens are failing.

“The more we can find out about what is actually happening within these failed queens, the closer we can get to understanding why this queen failure is happening in the first place.”

In their research, McAfee, Tarpy and their colleagues found that queens that were failing reproductively had significantly fewer sperm than ones that were reproductively thriving. And a higher percentage of the sperm they did have were dead. The researchers also discovered that compared to reproductively healthy queen bees, the failed queens were more likely to have higher levels of two viruses – sacbrood virus and black queen cell virus.

“The high levels of these viruses and poor sperm viability made us interested in seeing if there was a trade-off happening in the honey bee queen,” McAfee said. “There’s a classical hypothesis in reproductive biology that you can’t do everything well, so there’s a trade-off between immunity and being able to reproduce. It’s been found in quite a few other organisms, including insects, that there are such trade-offs.”

To find out if the same would be true with the honeybee queen, the researchers used a tool known as a mass spectrometer to gain a better picture of what was going on in the spermatheca of the healthy and failed queens. They identified 2,000 different proteins and determined which ones were linked to sperm viability.

One of the most significant proteins linked to sperm viability, McAfee said, was lysozyme. Lysozyme is an enzyme that’s part of animals’ immune systems.

“The queens with the highest sperm viability had the lowest abundance of lysozyme, indicating that they weren’t investing resources in this kind of immune response,” McAfee added. “That supports this idea that there’s a trade-off between the queens being able to fight off infections and being able to maintain their stored sperm.”

Tarpy said that the research could begin allowing researchers to find the cause of queen failure and find molecular tools that could “help identify bad queens upstream in the process before beekeepers use them and before they realize they’re bad.”

Right now, the cause of queen failure isn’t clear. “The underlying mechanisms could be disease. They could be pesticides. They could be improper nutrition,” he said. “We don’t know, so we are working our way backward to identify the causes.”

Once the causes are clearly understood, Tarpy added, scientists can then work forward “to help beekeepers keep mortality levels down to sustainable levels and thus keep their colonies thriving.”

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/ncsu-slo011321.php

________________________________________________________________________________

Daniel Favre *1, Olle Johansson 2 *1 A.R.R.A., P.O. box 494, CH-1860 Aigle, Switzerland 2 Associate Professor, retired from the Karolinska Institute (in Nov 2017, still active), Department of Neuroscience, head of The Experimental Dermatology Unit, Stockholm, Sweden, and Adjunct Professor, previously at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

DOI: https://doi.org/10.29121/granthaalayah.v8.i11.2020.2151

Article Type: Research Article

Article Citation: Daniel Favre, and Olle Johansson. (2020). DOES ENHANCED ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION DISTURB HONEYBEES’ BEHAVIOUR? OBSERVATIONS DURING NEW YEAR’S EVE 2019. International Journal of Research GRANTHAALAYAH, 8(11), 7-14. https://doi.org/10.29121/granthaa layah.v8.i11.2020.2151

Received Date: 26 October 2020

Accepted Date: 20 November 2020

Keywords: Honeybees Sounds Worker Piping RF-EMF New Year’s Eve Anthropogenic Electrosmog

ABSTRACT Insects, and especially honeybees, are under major threat everywhere around the globe. Current studies lack in the consideration of potential effects which may directly affect other organisms or ecosystems, because of the verPy limited attention which is usually received by the potential adverse ecological effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. Here, it is hypothesized that planetary enhancement of electromagnetic radiation produces a disturbing pollution for honeybees. In order to test this hypothesis, a bi-directional wide frequency range microphone was placed during the New Year’s Eve night 2019 in a honeybee hive, in order to detect and analyze potential changes in the acoustic behaviour of the bees due to increased phone induced RF- EMF radiation. It was observed that the honeybees produced strong worker piping signals. Such signals are typically produced shortly before takeoff of a swarm, or as the sign of a disturbed colony. It is therefore hypothesized that planetary enhancement of electromagnetic radiation produces a disturbing pollution for honeybees, such as during the New Year’s Eve night. Evidence of proof of such electromagnetic waves taking place at New Year’s Eve should be investigated worldwide during forthcoming similar.

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By: Casey McGrath, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution

Bee specimens from the Natural History Museum in Bern, Switzerland, were sequenced to provide insight into the recent evolution of the Western honey bee. Credit: Melanie Parejo

The past several decades have been hard on Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee. Originally native to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Western honey bees have spread worldwide thanks to the nutritional and medicinal value of their honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom. Even more recently, the rise of the mobile hive and increased demand for pollination services have resulted in an army of bees being unleashed on crops each year, most notably almonds, which require several million bee visits per acre. At the same time, the last 50 years have seen dramatic declines in honey bee populations due to pesticide use, climate change, and habitat destruction. Most notably, the spread of the parasitic mite Varroa destructor from Asia to Western Europe and North America in the 1970’s decimated A. mellifera colonies, making it nearly impossible for honey bees to survive without human intervention and resulting in the loss of the vast majority of wild and feral honey bee colonies. Given this decline, scientists have speculated that loss of genetic diversity among honey bees may be contributing to further losses in bee populations. A new study in Genome Biology and Evolution, titled “Digging into the genomic past of Swiss honey bees by whole-genome sequencing museum specimens,” provides evidence that disputes this theory, suggesting that loss of genetic diversity may not be among the long list of threats to bee survival.

The study, led by Melanie Parejo, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, involved the genomic sequencing of 22 bee specimens—some nearly 150 years old—from the Natural History Museum in Bern, Switzerland. The study represents the first whole-genome analysis of museum bee specimens, an accomplishment made possible by recent advances in high-throughput sequencing that overcome the challenges of working with historic DNA, which is often highly fragmented. By comparing the genome sequences of the historic bee samples to those of modern bees collected across Switzerland, the authors sought to uncover how changes in agricultural practices over the last 50 years had influenced the evolution of the Western honey bee.

Due to recent declines in wild bee populations and increased breeding efforts, the researchers expected to see a reduction in the genetic diversity of the modern bees compared to that of the historic specimens. However, Parejo and colleagues actually observed higher genetic diversity in the modern honey bees. “This finding was particularly surprising to us,” notes Parejo. “It was quite the opposite of what we expected and of the general narrative regarding honey bee diversity in the scientific literature, which points toward loss of genetic diversity as one of the many threats facing honey bees today.”

To explain their unexpected findings, the authors suggest that A. mellifera’s unique mating system, long-distance mating flights, or high recombination rate may help the Western honey bee maintain intrinsically high levels of variation. Moreover, the movement of hives and introduction of bees from different regions may be promoting increased levels of genetic diversity in modern hives. Whatever the mechanism, this is good news for honey bees, as high levels of diversity have been shown to be crucial for colony fitness. Indeed, intra-colony genetic diversity is associated with lower pathogen loads and a better chance of survival, perhaps owing to an enhanced ability to adapt to local environmental conditions.

The researchers also used the genomic data to identify signatures of selection between historic and modern Western honey bee populations. In modern bees, they found evidence for selection in immune-related genes, which may reflect the recent emergence or increasing prevalence of parasites and pathogens like Varroa and its associated viruses, the gut parasite Nosema ceranea, and the bacterium Melissococcus plutonius, which causes European foulbrood disease. Other genes with evidence for selection encoded nervous system proteins like ion channels and neurotransmitters, which are the targets of several widely used pesticides, including neonicotinoids and organochlorides. According to Parejo, these results “suggest that bees have had to adapt quickly to new challenges, particularly the increased use of chemicals in modern agriculture and beekeeping and the arrival of new diseases and parasites. These adaptations have left traces in the genomes of honey bees, allowing us to observe a small step in evolution.”

Overall, the results of the study should be reassuring to bee lovers, as they suggest that Western honey bees maintain sufficient adaptive potential to face future anthropogenic and environmental changes. The authors caution however that high levels of genetic diversity do not necessarily preclude the loss of specific locally adapted genetic variants, which may jeopardize colony survival. In fact, there is a recent trend toward focusing conservation efforts on “functional” diversity, rather than total genetic diversity. Toward this end, genomic analysis of museum specimens may be of further use, enabling the identification of beneficial genetic variants at specific loci that should be targeted for conservation.

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-good-news-honey-bees-year-old.html

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Genome sequencing shows climate barrier to spread of Africanized bees

Since the 1950s, “Africanized” honeybees have spread north and south across the Americas until apparently coming to a halt in California and northern Argentina. Now genome sequencing of hundreds of bees from the northern and southern limits shows a gradual decline in African ancestry across hundreds of miles, rather than an abrupt shift.

“There’s a gradual transition at the same latitude in North and South America,” said Erin Calfee, graduate student in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis, and first author on the paper, published Oct. 19 in PLOS Genetics. “There’s a natural barrier that is likely maintained by many different genetic loci.”

That barrier is mostly likely climate. Bees with majority African ancestry are unable to survive colder winters.

European colonists brought European species of honeybees (Apis mellifera) with them to the Americas as early as the 1600s. In addition to apiaries, these bees established in the wild alongside native bees.

In 1957, imported African honeybees of the subspecies Apis mellifera scutellata swarmed out of experimental hives in Brazil and started to rapidly spread, interbreeding with the resident European bees. Native to southern and eastern Africa, scutellata bees are known for their defensive behavior. They also carry some useful traits for beekeepers, such as resistance to Varroa mites.

Calfee, working with Professor Graham Coop and Associate Professor Santiago Ramirez from the Department of Evolution and Ecology and collaborators in Argentina, sequenced the genomes of bees collected at the northern and southern edges of the scutellata expansion.

They found that the bees at the northern and southern edges of the range have a highly variable mix of scutellata and European bee ancestry. The higher the latitude, the less scutellata ancestry is in the mix.

“The whole genome is tracking latitude and climate,” Calfee said. There are likely many genes involved in climate sensitivity and winter survival, she said. But Calfee also finds that in some parts of the genome scutellata ancestry has spread far beyond these climate limits in both North and South America, evidence that some scutellata genes are advantageous and not tied to climate sensitivity. In contrast, the researchers did not find any evidence for selection for European ancestry in the spread of scutellata bees.

The findings challenge the idea of a binary difference between “Africanized” and “European” honeybees, Ramirez said. In fact, all of these introduced honeybees are hybrids to some degree.

Diversity a resource for breeding bees

The results of the study could be of interest for breeding bees for desirable traits, such as resistance to pathogens.

Although the researchers looked only at gene sequences and not the resulting phenotypes (except for one, wing length), the results do show which genetic loci are important because they are under selection in the hybrid zones.
Scutellata bees and hybrids have a lot more genetic diversity than European bees, and the researchers found that they lost very little of this diversity in their expansion from Brazil to California.

“Beekeepers can potentially draw from this genetic variation to breed for desirable traits,” Ramirez said. What started out as an invasion may become part of the solution to declining bee health.

“It makes sense but it’s kind of surprising because we have 1.5 million (honeybee) colonies being brought into California every spring to pollinate crops,” Ramirez said. Those domesticated bees are then trucked around the country, but they do not appear to have a large effect on the spread of African ancestry into feral honeybee populations.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201021163936.htm

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BLAINE, WA (KPTV) – The first ever Asian giant hornet nest has been found in Washington state.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture said entomologists discovered the nest in Blaine, which is in Whatcom County near the Canadian border.

The nest is inside the cavity of a tree on private property near an area cleared for a home.

“While Asian giant hornets normally nest in the ground, they are occasionally found nesting in dead trees. Dozens of the hornets were seen entering and exiting the tree while the WSDA team was present,” according to an agency statement.

Agriculture officials in Washington have been working to track down a nest for the hornets, which have been menacingly dubbed “murder hornets.” There had been multiple sightings of the invasive hornets in the Blaine area this month.

The agency plans to destroy the nest Saturday. Inclement weather forced them to postpone plans to eliminate the nest Friday, according to WSDA.

The nest was found after a WSDA trapper collected two live Asian giant hornets Wednesday using a new type of trap that was placed in the area. Two more live hornets were found in another trap Thursday morning.

Entomologists were able to attach radio trackers to the hornets, and one of them led to the discovery of the nest late Thursday afternoon.

The property owner has provided permission for WSDA staff to eradicate the nest and remove the tree, if necessary.

Asian giant hornets, an invasive pest not native to the U.S., are the world’s largest hornet and a predator of honey bees and other insects. A small group of Asian giant hornets can kill an entire honey bee hive in a matter of hours, according to WSDA.

For more, go to agr.wa.gov/hornets.

Asian giant hornets, known as “murder hornets” were discovered in northern Washington state. Images from the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

https://www.kptv.com/news/first-ever-murder-hornet-nest-in-u-s-discovered-in-washington-state/article_091f0a6e-1553-11eb-b90a-abdbd89615dd.html

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