To accurately estimate exposure of bees to pesticides, analytical methods are needed to enable quantification of nanogram/gram (ng/g) levels of contaminants in small samples of pollen or the individual insects. A modified QuEChERS extraction method coupled with ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) analysis was tested to quantify residues of 19 comm...

Almost all bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers. Female bees collect pollen to provision their nest cells, whereas they use nectar for individual energy supply and nest cell provisioning. Bees fine-tune nectar foraging to the amount and to the concentration of nectar, but the individual bees' response to variability of amount and concentration of pollen reward has not yet been studied th...

Foraging insect pollinators such as bees must find and identify flowers in a complex visual environment. Bees use skylight polarization patterns for navigation, a capacity mediated by the polarization-sensitive dorsal rim area (DRA) of their eye. While other insects use polarization sensitivity to identify appropriate habitats, oviposition sites, and food sources, to date no nonnavigational fun...

Bees are at risk of predation from flower-dwelling ambush predators. Since these predators tend to be cryptic, bees trying to mitigate predation risk may need to make use of indirect cues of the predator’s presence. For example, they may use cues of past predation events as indirect cues of current predation risk. I conducted a series of experiments that examined how bumblebees (genus Bombus La...

The learning capacities of males and females may differ with sex-specific behavioural requirements. Bumblebees provide a useful model system to explore how different lifestyles are reflected in learning abilities, because their (female but sterile) workers and males engage in fundamentally different behaviour routines. Bumblebee males, like workers, embark on active flower foraging but in contr...

Foraging is a result of innate and acquired mechanisms, and is optimized in order to increase fitness. During foraging, an animal faces many threats, such as predation and infection. The uptake of parasites and diseases while foraging is common and an individual should be adapted to detect and avoid such threats, using cues from either the abiotic environment or the parasite. Social animals pos...