Severe declines in honey bee populations have made it imperative to understand key factors impacting honey bee health. Of major concern is nutrition, as malnutrition in honey bees is associated with immune system impairment and increased pesticide susceptibility. Beekeepers often feed high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or sucrose after harvesting honey or during periods of nectar dearth. We report...

Social insect colonies represent distinct units of selection. Most individuals evolve by kin selection and forgo individual reproduction. Instead, they display altruistic food sharing, nest maintenance and self-sacrificial colony defence. Recently, altruistic self-removal of diseased worker ants from their colony was described as another important kin-selected behaviour. Here, we report corrobo...

The gut microflora of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, is receiving increasing attention as a potential determinant of the bees' health and their efficacy as pollinators. Studies have focused primarily on the microbial taxa that appear numerically dominant in the bee gut, with the assumption that the dominant status suggests their potential importance to the bees' health. However, numerically min...

Say the word “insect” and what comes to mind? I asked that question to nonentomology, first-year undergraduate students on the first day of class. The typical response: “Insects suck.” I suspect they were thinking of the suffering inflicted by mosquitoes and other bloodfeeding insects, crop damage caused by their vegetarian counterparts, and the invasion of human dwellings by cockroaches and te...

Habitat degradation has over time formed synergy with other factors to contribute to dwindling populations of both fauna and flora by altering their habitats. The disturbance of natural habitats affects the diversity of both vertebrates and invertebrates by altering both feeding and nesting sites for which organisms are known to depend on for survival. Little is known of the extent to which vul...

The viral levels and immune responses of Italian honey bees (IHB), Russian honey bees (RHB) and an outcross of Varroa Sensitive Hygienic bees (POL) deliberately infested with one or two foundress Varroa were compared. We found that the Deformed wing virus (DWV) level in IHB inoculated with one or two foundress Varroa increased to about 10(3) or 10(5) fold the levels of their uninfested brood. I...

Zoologists distinguish individual animals using marking techniques. Generally they test the potential influence of marking on survival only; the influence on behaviour is usually neglected. We evaluated the influence of two external marking techniques (nail polish and queen-bee marker) on the behaviour of common pill woodlouse, Armadillidium vulgare. The behaviour was examined from two points o...

Genetically modified Bt crops are increasingly used worldwide but side effects and especially sublethal effects on beneficial insects remain poorly studied. Honey bees are beneficial insects for natural and cultivated ecosystems through pollination. The goal of the present study was to assess potential effects of two concentrations of Cry1Ab protein (3 and 5000 ppb) on young adult honey bees. F...

Goal. Improving the methodology for assessing toxicity and potential safety of insecticides honey bee.
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The importance of honey bees to the world economy far surpasses their contribution in terms of honey production; they are responsible for up to 30% of the world's food production through pollination of crops. Since fall 2006, honey bees in the U.S. have faced a serious population decline, due in part to a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which is a disease syndrome that is like...