Pathogen spread or ‘spillover’ can occur when heavily infected, domestic hosts interact with closely-related wildlife populations. Commercially-produced bumble bees used in greenhouse pollination often have higher levels of various pathogens than wild bumble bees. These pathogens may spread to wild bees when commercial bees escape from greenhouses and interact with their wild counterparts at ne...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Elado®-dressed winter oilseed rape (OSR, 10 g clothianidin & 2 g beta-cyfluthrin/kg seed) on the development, reproduction and behaviour of large earth bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) as part of a large-scale monitoring field study in Northern Germany, where OSR is usually cultivated at 25-33 % of the arable land. Both reference and test s...

Successive negative and positive contrast occurs when the incentive value of a rewarding stimulus is devalued or increased unexpectedly and has been observed in many species ranging from bumble bee to man [1]. In two separate studies, we employed brain dialysis to monitor changes in dopamine (DA) efflux in the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) of the rat during both negative and positive contrast as evid...