Since the demise of apartheid in South Africa, corporations have been encouraged to participate in the governmental goal of increasing corporate ownership by the black majority population. One vehicle that has arisen to help facilitate an increase in corporate ownership has been black economic empowerment (BEE) transactions. BEE transactions are essentially private placements of equity. Firms t...

One of the most widely used techniques for water content determination in food is Karl Fischer (KF) titration. Compared to other methods based on loss of weight, the primary advantage of the Karl Fischer titration method is its high selectivity to water. The aim of the study was to develop and validate the Karl Fischer method for moisture determination in pollen loads, royal jelly, bee venom an...

The diagnosis of insect venom allergy and the indication for specific immunotherapy is based on history, skin tests and demonstration of hymenoptera venom-specific IgE-antibodies. Cellular tests can add useful information but the role of basophil activation tests for the different venoms has to be elucidated further. We evaluated positive reactions in a basophil activation test using CD63 expre...

Bees are important pollinators of plants in both agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes. Recent losses of both managed and wild bee species have negative impacts on crop production and ecosystem diversity. Therefore, in order to mitigate bee losses, it is important to identify the factors most responsible. Multiple factors including pathogens, agrochemical exposure, lack of quality forage...

Eusocial honey bee populations (Apis mellifera) employ an age stratification organization of egg, larvae, pupae, hive bees and foraging bees. Understanding the recent decline in honey bee colonies hinges on understanding the factors that impact each of these different age castes. We first perform an analysis of steady state bee populations given mortality rates within each bee caste and find th...

Objectives: Royal jelly (RJ), a secretion of both the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of nurse workers, is believed to play a central role in honeybee queen development. Important component of royal jelly are proteins which form about 50% of the dry mass of RJ. Major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs) are the dominant proteinaceous component of royal jelly and constitute about 82-90% of total pr...

Forests provide potentially important bee habitat, but little research has been done on forest bee diversity and the relative effectiveness of bee sampling methods in this environment. Bee diversity and sampling methodology were studied in an Illinois, USA upland oak-hickory forest using elevated and ground-level pan traps, malaise traps, and vane traps. 854 bees and 55 bee species were collect...

Individual honey bee Apis mellifera L. queens were examined for the presence of six honey bee viruses including acute bee paralysis virus, chronic bee paralysis virus, black queen cell virus, deformed wing virus, Kashmir bee virus, and sacbrood virus. All viruses, except ABPV, were detected in the samples. Among queens examined for virus infections, 93% had multiple virus infections. The detect...

This paper is the use of modern information technology, research the quality of bee product tracking and traceability system based on Agent. On the one hand, through establish the quality of bee product tracking and traceability system, to provide a technical support and general-purpose tools, it includes bee products from production to sales for the entire process digital, visual expression, d...

In this paper we present a modification of artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for constrained optimization problems. In nature more than one onlooker bee goes to a promising food source reported by employed bee. Our proposed modification forms a mutant solution in onlooker phase using three onlookers. This approach obtains better results than the original artificial bee colony algorithm. Our...