Little information is available regarding the adverse effects of pesticides on natural honey bee populations. This study highlights the detrimental effects of pesticides on honey bee olfaction through behavioural studies, scanning electron microscopic imaging of antennal sensillae and confocal microscopic studies of honey bee brains for calcium ions on Apis cerana, a native Indian honey bee spe...

Field studies were conducted to evaluate the transfer of active ingredients (AIs) of plant protection products (PPPs) to beehives. They were applied in two commodity red raspberry plantations of two varieties: Laszka (experiment 1) and Seedling (experiment 2). Samples of flowers, leaves, bees, brood, and honey were examined for the presence of chlorpyrifos, cypermethrin, difenoconazole, cyprodi...

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are the primary pollinators of major horticultural crops. Over the last few decades, a substantial decline in honey bees and their colonies have been reported. While a plethora of factors could contribute to the putative decline, pathogens, and pesticides are common concerns that draw attention. In addition to potential direct effects on honey bees, indirect pesticid...

Here we explore how waggle dance decoding may be applied as a tool for ecology by evaluating the benefits and limitations of the methodology compared to other existing ways to evaluate the honey bees’ use of the landscape. The honey bee foragers sample and “report” back on large areas (c. 100 km2). Because honey bees perform dances only for the most profitable resources, these data provide spat...

In temperate climates, honey bees (Apis mellifera) survive the winter by entering a distinct physiological and behavioral state. In recent years, beekeepers are reporting unsustainably high colony losses during the winter, which have been linked to parasitization by Varroa mites, virus infections, geographic location, and variation across honey bee genotypes. Here, we review literature on envir...

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...

Varroa destructor, the introduced parasite of European honey bees associated with massive colony deaths, spreads readily through populations of honey bee colonies, both managed colonies living crowded together in apiaries and wild colonies living widely dispersed in natural settings. Mites are hypothesized to spread between most managed colonies via phoretically riding forager bees when they en...

Recent losses of honey bee colonies have led to increased interest in the microbial communities that are associated with these important pollinators. A critical function that bacteria perform for their honey bee hosts, but one that is poorly understood, is the transformation of worker-collected pollen into bee bread, a nutritious food product that can be stored for long periods in colonies. We ...

Understanding which flowers honey bees (Apis mellifera) use for forage can help us to provide suitable plants for healthy honey bee colonies. Accordingly, honey DNA metabarcoding provides a valuable tool for investigating pollen and nectar collection. We investigated early season (April and May) floral choice by honey bees provided with a very high diversity of flowering plants within the Natio...

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...