Solitary bees and honey bees from a neighbouring apiary were screened for a broad set of putative pathogens including protists, fungi, spiroplasmas and viruses. Most sampled bees appeared to be infected with multiple parasites. Interestingly, viruses exclusively known from honey bees such as Apis mellifera Filamentous Virus and Varroa destructor Macula-like Virus were also discovered in solitar...

INTRODUCTION Paenibacillus larvae larvae (WHITE) is the causative agent of American foulbrood (AFB) in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). This disease is lethal to honey bee colonies if curative control actions are not taken (HANSEN and BRØDSGAARD, 1997). Recently, increasing problems with AFB in Europe (DROBNÍKOVÁ,1992; HANSEN,1996; OTTEN, 1991; VON DER OHE et al. 1996) have renewed the interest ...

Since 2006 the rate of honey bee colony failure has increased significantly. As an aid to testing hypotheses for the causes of colony failure we have developed a compartment model of honey bee colony population dynamics to explore the impact of different death rates of forager bees on colony growth and development. The model predicts a critical threshold forager death rate beneath which colonie...

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index rates the painfulness of 78 Hymenoptera species, using the honey bee as a reference point. However, the question of how sting painfulness varies depending on body location remains unanswered. This study rated the painfulness of honey bee stings over 25 body locations in one subject (the author). Pain was rated on a 1-10 scale, relative to an internal standard, the f...

BACKGROUND Data on outcome of insect venom immunotherapy in children are rare. OBJECTIVE We investigated the rate of sting recurrence and outcome of Hymenoptera venom anaphylaxis in children of different age groups treated with immunotherapy. METHODS Data from children consecutively referred for anaphylaxis to Hymenoptera venom were collected using a standardized questionnaire. RESULTS Du...

Pollination of flowering plants is an important ecosystem service provided by wild insect pollinators and managed honey bees. Hence, losses and declines of pollinating insect species threaten human food security and are of major concern not only for apiculture or agriculture but for human society in general. Honey bee colony losses and bumblebee declines have attracted intensive research intere...

Introduction: In diabetes therapy, a great attention is paid on lowering blood glucose levels and lipid regulating mechanisms of various medical agents including animal toxins. Honey bee venom reduces blood glucose level through increased insulin secretion and glucose take-up. It also has lipid regulating activity verified in several other studies. For that reason, bee venom could be considered...

I n t r o d u c t i o n The adult worker honey bee is a sophisticated learner in a small package. To a certain extent, the same may be said of many insects. But the striking tendency of the social insects-the ants, bees, wasps, and te rmi testo organize social life on the basis of age polyethism (division of labor by worker age) results in a relatively prolonged period of adult behavioral devel...

Using uniplex RT-PCR we screened honey bee colonies for the presence of several bee viruses, including black queen cell virus (BQCV), deformed wing virus (DWV), Kashmir bee virus (KBV), and sacbrood virus (SBV), and described the detection of mixed virus infections in bees from these colonies. We report for the first time that individual bees can harbor four viruses simultaneously. We also deve...

In this paper, we present a new Artificial Bee Colony algorithm to solve the non-unicost Set Covering Problem. The Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is a recent metaheuristic technique based on the intelligent foraging behavior of honey bee swarm. Computational results show that Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is competitive in terms of solution quality with other metaheuristic approaches for the...