Annual flowers strips benefit bumble bee colony growth and reproduction

Neonicotinoid pesticide reduces bumble bee colony growth and queen production.

Growing evidence for declines in bee populations has caused great concern because of the valuable ecosystem services they provide. Neonicotinoid insecticides have been implicated in these declines because they occur at trace levels in the nectar and pollen of crop plants. We exposed colonies of the bumble bee Bombus terrestris in the laboratory to field-realistic levels of the neonicotinoid imi...

Methylation and worker reproduction in the bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris)

Insects are at the dawn of an epigenetics era. Numerous social insect species have been found to possess a functioning methylation system, previously not thought to exist in insects. Methylation, an epigenetic tag, may be vital for the sociality and division of labour for which social insects are renowned. In the bumble-bee Bombus terrestris, we found methylation differences between the genomes...

Bumble bee colony dynamics: quantifying the importance of land use and floral resources for colony growth and queen production.

Bumble bee (Bombus) species are ecologically and economically important pollinators, and many species are in decline. In this article, we develop a mechanistic model to analyse growth trajectories of Bombus vosnesenskii colonies in relation to floral resources and land use. Queen production increased with floral resources and was higher in semi-natural areas than on conventional farms. However,...

The Bumble Bee Immune Responses

Effects of Novel Pesticides on Bumble Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colony Health and Foraging Ability

Two experiments were conducted testing for lethal and sublethal effects of the transgenicproteinsCry1Acandchitinase, and thechemical seedand soil treatment imidaclopridonbumble bees (Bombus occidentalis Greene and B. impatiens Cresson, Hymenoptera: Apidae). In the Þrst experiment, B. occidentalis colonies were exposed to realistic residue levels of Cry1Ac, chitinase, and imidacloprid found in p...