The honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is the most important managed pollinator species worldwide and plays a critical role in the pollination of a diverse range of economically important crops. This species is important to agriculture and historically has been used as a surrogate species for pollinators to evaluate the potential adverse effects for conventional, biological, and microbial pesticides...

The effectiveness of two lures for trapping the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida, by means of in-hive traps was tested by field trials in apiaries located in Florida, Delaware, and Pennsylvania during 2003-2005. Both lures included a mixture (pollen dough) consisting of bee pollen and commercial pollen substitute formulated with or without glycerol and honey. Before it was used in the traps, t...

Honey bees are threatened by land use changes which reduce the availability and diversity of pollen and nectar resources. There is concern that poor nutrition may be involved in recent population declines, either directly or due to indirect effects on immunocompetence. The larval stage is likely to be the most vulnerable to a poor diet, but the effects of larval nutrition on the disease suscept...

We developed a method for rearing larvae of Africanized bees under laboratory conditions to determine the amount of diet needed during larval development to obtain a worker bee. We started with larvae 18-24 h old, which were transferred to polyethylene cell cups and fed for five days. We found that the amount of diet needed for successful larval development was: 4, 15, 25, 50, and 70 microl dur...

Medonosna pčela (Apis mellifera L.) jedan je od najznačajnijih oprašivača. Međutim, klimatske promjene, uz bolesti koje uzrokuju stradanje pčela, prepoznate su kao osnovnih problema pčelarstva u budućnosti. Sušna ljeta i hladna proljeća, ukoliko pčelar ne intervenira, mogu dovesti do stradanja zajednica ili sporog proljetnog razvoja. U ovom istraživanju tijekom dvije sezone ispitan utjecaj stim...

Bees provide vital pollination services to the majority of flowering plants in both natural and agricultural systems. Unfortunately, both native and managed bee populations are experiencing declines, threatening the persistence of these plants and crops. Agricultural chemicals are one possible culprit contributing to bee declines. Even fungicides, generally considered safe for bees, have been s...

In urban landscapes, gardens provide refuges for bee diversity, but conservation potential may depend on local and landscape features. Foraging and population persistence of bee species, as well as overall pollinator community structure, may be supported by the abundance, richness, and spatial distribution of floral resources. Floral resources strongly differ in urban gardens. Using hand nettin...

Bee venom therapy has been used to treat immune-related diseases such as arthritis for a long time. Recently, it has revealed that group III secretory phospholipase A2 from bee venom (bee venom group III sPLA2) has in vitro and in vivo immunomodulatory effects. A growing number of reports have demonstrated the therapeutic effects of bee venom group III sPLA2. Notably, new experimental data have...

Given bees' central effect on vegetation communities, it is important to understand how and why bee distributions vary across ecological gradients. We examined how plant community composition, plant diversity, nesting suitability, canopy cover, land use, and fire history affected bee distribution across an open-forest gradient in northwest Indiana, USA, a gradient similar to the historic Midwes...

Evidence for declining populations of both wild and managed bees has raised concern about a potential global pollination crisis. Strategies to mitigate bee loss generally aim to enhance floral resources. However, we do not really know whether loss of preferred floral resources is the key driver of bee decline because accurate assessment of host plant preferences is difficult, particularly for s...