Australia does not have varroa mite. However, we investigated whether modified hive bottom boards used for varroa mite management in honey bee colonies had other benefits, for honey production. We compared a number of colony parameters between hives fitted with tube, mesh and conventional (solid) bottom boards in two locations in eastern Australian, Richmond NSW and Castlemaine Victoria. Coloni...

american foulbrood (afb) disease is caused by the sporeforming bacterium paenibacillus larvae larvae. traditional diagnosis is based on culture technique is time and laboratory work consuming. in this study with standard strain, pcr was developed by specific primers and pcr products were electrophoresed on 0.8 % agarose gel. the pcr primers were selected on the basis of the 16s rrna gene and am...

  Among the viruses infecting honey bees, chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) is known to induce significant losses in honey bee colonies. CBPV is an unclassified polymorphic single stranded RNA virus. Using RT-PCR, the virus infections in honey bees can be detected in a rapid and accurate manner. Bee samples were collected from 23 provinces of Iran, between July-September 2011 and 2012. A tota...

Honey bees play a vital role in the pollination of crops, fruits, and wild plants [1]. However, pathogens and parasites pose major threats to their fitness and survival due to the large number of declines reported recently in North America and several European countries [2]. Aside from the innate immunity of honey bees, indirect fitness benefits resulting from altered behavior may provide resis...

In Gabon, like elsewhere in Africa, crops are often sources of conflict between humans and wildlife. Wildlife damage to crops can drastically reduce income, amplifying poverty and creating a negative perception of wild animal conservation among rural people. In this context, crop-raiding animals like elephants quickly become "problem animals". To deter elephants from raiding crops beehives have...

BACKGROUND Widely considered probiotic organisms, Bifidobacteria are common inhabitants of the alimentary tract of animals including insects. Bifidobacteria identified from the honey bee are found in larval guts and throughout the alimentary tract, but attain their greatest abundance in the adult hind gut. To further understand the role of Bifidobacteria in honey bees, we sequenced two strains ...

The biogenic amine octopamine (OA) is involved in the regulation of honey bee behavioral development; brain levels are higher in foragers than bees working in the hive, especially in the antennal lobes, and treatment causes precocious foraging. We measured brain mRNA and protein activity of tyramine beta-hydroxylase (T betah), an enzyme vital for OA synthesis, in order to begin testing the hypo...

The established amplified fragment-length polymorphism (AFLP) protocol was simplified and optimized for honey bee DNA (Apis mellifera L.). Compared to the original method, the following simplifications were made: (i) the digestion of DNA and ligation of the adapters are performed in one reaction vs. two, (ii) one restriction enzyme is used vs. two and (iii) amplification is accomplished in one ...

Physicochemical analyses were carried out to evaluate 27 samples of honeys from three species of the Brazilian genus Melipona (M. capixaba, M. rufiventris and M. mondury) from Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais States. The parameters water activity (Aw), percentage of soluble solids (Brix %), pH, acidity (meq/Kg) and moisture (%) were evaluated. The honey characteristics obtained from these sample...

BACKGROUND In 2010 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), again devastated honey bee colonies in the USA, indicating that the problem is neither diminishing nor has it been resolved. Many CCD investigations, using sensitive genome-based methods, have found small RNA bee viruses and the microsporidia, Nosema apis and N. ceranae in healthy and collapsing colonies alike with no single pathogen firmly lin...