#Fear of predators drives honey bees away from good food sourcesmost of us think of honey bees as having a bucolic pastoral existence--flying from flower to flower to collect the nectar they then turn into honey.
But while they're capable of defending themselves with their painful stings honey bees live in a world filled with danger in
Such fear drives bees to avoid food sources closely associated with predators and interestingly makes colonies of bees less risk-tolerant than individual bees according to a study published in this week's issue of the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
This strategy of colonies collectively exhibiting significantly more caution than the riskier individual foragers may help honey bees exploit all of the available food sources with some intrepid foragers visiting more dangerous food
while the colony judiciously decides how to best allocate its foraging says James Nieh a professor of biology at UC San diego. Nieh worked with scientists at Yunnan Agricultural University in China to study the impact on foraging Asian honey bees of the monstrous
-looking Asian Giant hornet Vespa tropica and a smaller hornet species known as Vespa velutina which has invaded Europe
and now poses a threat to European honey bees. The Asian Giant hornets are armored dangerous heavily predators says Ken Tan the first author of the paper who also works at the Chinese Academy of Science's Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden.
Bee colonies respond by forming balls of defending bees encasing the hornet and in some cases cooking it to death with heat generated by the bees.
The researchers found that bees treated the bigger hornet species which is four times more massive than the smaller species as more dangerous.
In a series of experiments they presented bees with different combinations of safe and dangerous feeders--depending on their association with the larger
or smaller hornets--containing varying concentrations of sucrose. Bees avoided the dangerous feeders and preferred feeders that provided sweeter nectar says Nieh.
However predators are clever and can focus on sweeter food ones which bees prefer. So we also tested how bees would respond
when sweeter food was also more dangerous. What we found was that the individual bees were more risk-tolerant.
They avoided the giant hornet at the best food but continued to visit the lower quality food with the smaller hornet.
Other scientists involved in the research were Zongwen Hu Weiwen Chen Zhengwei Wang and Yuchong Wang all of the Eastern Bee Research Institute of Yunnan Agricultural University.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-San diego. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
most likely beetles as bees would not evolve for another 100 million years. Story Source:
#Model of dangerous bee disease in Jersey provides tool in fight against honeybee infectionsscientists at the University of Warwick have modelled an outbreak of the bee infection American foulbrood in Jersey using a technique
As well as modelling how bee infections spread the method also allows scientists to simulate various disease control interventions in order to measure their efficacy.
but this is the first time the method has been applied to bee disease. The research is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Honeybees are one of the most important bee species in the world in terms of their contribution to food production through pollination.
But in the past 20 years there has been marked a increase in the level of disease among bee populations.
The researchers hope now to expand their model to investigate the spread of European Foulbrood a more common bee disease in the UK.
Without bees to spread pollen from the male parts of plants to the female parts fruit may not form.
and vegetable crops around the country in an approach known as managed pollination It involves placing bee hives in fields
He is an emeritus professor of entomology at Virginia Tech and an authority on colony decline in bees.
Beekeeper and other organizations are pushing to stop the sale of certain neonicotinoids insecticides that some regard as the main culprit of CCD.
and concluded that there is no scientific evidence that the neonicotinoids are causing serious problems with bee colonies.
Honeybees are not the only species of bee that can be used in managed pollination. If colonies continue declining Fell believes that there will be an increase in the use of other species including the bumble bee and alfalfa leafcutter bee.
There are however measured declines in these species'populations as well. In addition they are not as easily managed for pollination as the honeybee.
Honeybee colonies can be moved from one crop to another in a single season something that cannot be done easily with bumble bees
or solitary bee species such as the alfalfa leafcutter bee explained Fell. If we can gain a better understanding of the factors causing honeybee decline we may be able to apply this knowledge to protecting other species. Fell cited funding from the Virginia Department of agriculture and Consumer Services the National Honey Board the Virginia Agricultural
Council and the U s. Department of agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society (ACS.
which allowed them to estimate how closely related the bees were across the landscape and group sisters mothers and daughters into more than 2000 colonies.
whether conservation schemes to improve the countryside for bees like planting more flowers on farmland are having a positive effect.
and species. However the area targeted for bees and other pollinators is less than 0. 1%of the total managed area.
The next stage of the research is to use mathematical models to produce a bees'eye view of the landscape.
To obtain it they guide human honey-hunters to bees'nests. In return for showing the humans the bees the honeyguide gains access to the otherwise dangerous and impenetrable nest and its sought-after wax.
But these African birds also have a dark side. They are unusually vicious parasites whose imposter chicks stab the chicks of their host birds (often little bee-eaters) to death
#Bee venom: Biophysicists zoom in on pore-forming toxina new study by Rice university biophysicists offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the molecular-level action of melittin the principal toxin in bee venom.
The research could aid in the development of new drugs that use a similar mechanism as melittin's to attack cancer and bacteria.
#Highest winter losses in recent years for honey bees in Scotlandsoaring numbers of honey bees died last winter University of Strathclyde research has revealed.
A survey run by Strathclyde academics on behalf of the Scottish Beekeepers'Association indicated 31.3 per cent of managed honey bee colonies in Scotland failed to survive last winter--almost double the previous year's loss rate of 15.9 per cent.
because bees play a pivotal role in crop pollination agricultural yields and therefore food supply and prices.
Last winter's figures represent 156 colonies lost during the winter of 2012-13 out of a total of 498 colonies being managed by beekeepers taking part in the survey.
Furthermore 67 of the 117 beekeepers who provided useable data reported losing at least some of their colonies between 1 october 2012 and 1 april 2013.
The results were based on responses to online and postal questionnaires from a random sample of 300 members of the Scottish Beekeepers'Association
which is thought to represent most of the country's estimated 1300 beekeepers. Since the spring of 2008 Mr Peterson has also been collecting data twice a year from a network of volunteers across Scotland on wild honey bees--those not managed by beekeepers and
which instead live in habitats such as hollow trees and the roofs of old buildings. Last winter 11 out of 20 wild honey bee colonies known to be alive last September
--and reported on this spring--are known to have died. Mr Peterson said: The latest results indicate a low survival rate of just 45 per cent amongst feral colonies over this last winter.
Dr Gray told how bees face many challenges internationally. She said: Honey bees worldwide are having to contend with habitat loss
and reduction in variety of forage sources due to pressures of intensifying land use increasing spread of new and old pests--caused by globalisation of trade in bees and bee products--as well as possible adverse effects
of agricultural pesticides. For bees in Northern europe poor weather conditions--combined with these various other factors
which impact adversely on bees--are certainly making beekeeping a challenge and survival difficult for honey bees generally.
The difficult weather conditions are a particular problem in Scotland with severe winters followed by long cold wet springs being a problem especially
In April Rural affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead announced the Scottish government was making £200000 available to help commercial bee farmers to restock
#Honey bee gene targeting offers system to understand food-related behavioron July 25th Jove the Journal of Visualized Experiments will publish a new technique that will help scientists better understand the genes that govern food-related
behavior in honey bees. The impact of this study could take scientists one-step closer toward understanding--and perhaps changing--undesirable food-related behavior in humans via gene control.
She and a team of scientists are behind the experiment titled RNAI-mediated Double Gene Knockdown and Gustatory perception Measurement in Honey Bees.
Honey bees are much less complex than mammals and humans but we share many major genes said Wang
therefore honey bees have become an emerging system for us to understand food related behavior in humans.
and insulin pathway genes were involved in honey bee gustatory perception. Her new article introduces two strategies for targeting
and simultaneously down-regulating multiple genes in honey bees via RNA interference. This allows for further research in examining the role of insulin metabolism in gustatory perception.
In the article published today Wang's team has provided also a technique to measure the resulting changes in honey bee behavior
Gustatory perception is a behavioral predictor for honey bee social behavior said Wang. A honey bee's sensitivity to sugar predicts the food-choices and timing of foraging.
Wang's experiment opens the door for researchers to build upon her lab's techniques. We believe our double knockdown approach will be recognized more
#Common agricultural chemicals shown to impair honey bees healthcommercial honey bees used to pollinate crops are exposed to a wide variety of agricultural chemicals including common fungicides
which impair the bees'ability to fight off a potentially lethal parasite according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the U s. Department of agriculture.
The study published July 24 in the online journal PLOS ONE is the first analysis of real-world conditions encountered by honey bees as their hives pollinate a wide range of crops from apples to watermelons.
The researchers collected pollen from honey bee hives in fields from Delaware to Maine. They analyzed the samples to find out which flowering plants were the bees'main pollen sources and
what agricultural chemicals were commingled with the pollen. The researchers fed the pesticide-laden pollen samples to healthy bees
which were tested then for their ability to resist infection with Nosema ceranae--a parasite of adult honey bees that has been linked to a lethal phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.
On average the pollen samples contained 9 different agricultural chemicals including fungicides insecticides herbicides and miticides.
Pesticides found most frequently in the bees'pollen were the fungicide chlorothalonil used on apples
and other crops and the insecticide fluvalinate used by beekeepers to control Varroa mites common honey bee pests.
In the study's most surprising result bees that were fed the collected pollen samples containing chlorothonatil were nearly three times more likely to be infected by Nosema than bees that were exposed not to these chemicals said Jeff Pettis research leader of the USDA's Bee Research
The miticides used to control Varroa mites also harmed the bees'ability to withstand parasitic infection.
Beekeepers know they are making a trade-off when they use miticides said University of Maryland researcher Dennis vanengelsdorp the study's senior author.
The chemicals compromise bees'immune systems but the damage is less than it would be if mites were left unchecked.
We don't think of fungicides as having a negative effect on bees because they're not designed to kill insects vanengelsdorp said.
while bees are foraging on the crop. This finding suggests that we have to reconsider that policy.
In an unexpected finding most of the crops that the bees were pollinating appeared to provide their hives with little nourishment.
Honey bees gather pollen to take to their hives and feed their young. But when the researchers collected pollen from bees foraging on native North american crops such as blueberries and watermelon they found the pollen came from other flowering plants in the area not from the crops.
This is probably because honey bees which evolved in the Old world are not efficient at collecting pollen from New world crops
even though they can pollinate these crops. The study's findings are not directly related to colony collapse disorder the still-unexplained phenomenon in which entire honey bee colonies suddenly die.
However the researchers said the results shed light on the many factors that are interacting to stress honey bee populations.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Maryland. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Bees betray their flowers when pollinator species declineremove even one bumblebee species from an ecosystem and the impact is swift and clear:
The results show how reduced competition among pollinators disrupts floral fidelity or specialization among the remaining bees in the system leading to less successful plant reproduction.
Bees are by far the most important pollinators worldwide and have evolved co with the floral resources they need for nutrition.
During the past decade however scientists have reported dramatic declines in populations of some bee species sparking research into the potential impact of such declines.
When bees are promiscuous visiting plants of more than one species during a single foraging session they are much less effective as pollinators Briggs says.
because the bees can fly pretty fast. Sometimes the researchers could only record between five and 10 movements
while in other cases they could follow the bees to 100 or more flowers. Running around after bumblebees in these beautiful wildflower meadows was one of the most fun parts of the research Brosi says.
Much of this bee team was made up of Emory undergraduate students funded by the college's Scholarly Inquiry
When we caught bees to remove target species from the system or to swab their bodies for pollen we released them unharmed
Across the steps of the pollination process from patterns of bumblebee visits to plants to picking up pollen to seed production the researchers saw a cascading effect of removing one bee species
The reduced fidelity in manipulated plots meant that bees in the manipulated groups carried more different types of pollen on their bodies than those in the control groups.
The small change in the level of competition made the remaining bees more likely to'cheat'on the larkspur Briggs says.
#Widely used pesticide toxic to honeybeesforthcoming research in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry analyzes the physiological effects of three separate pesticides on honey bees (Apis mellifera.
#Bees under threat from disease-carrying bumblebee imports, research revealsstricter controls over bumblebee imports to the UK are required urgently to prevent diseases spreading to native bumblebees
While wild species of bees and other insects pollinate many crops commercially-reared and imported bumblebees are essential for pollination of greenhouse crops such as tomatoes.
Parasites were also found in the pollen food supplied with the bees. Screening revealed that the imported bumblebee colonies carried a range of parasites including the three main bumblebee parasites (Crithidia bombi Nosema bombi and Apicystis bombi) three honeybee parasites (Nosema
whether the parasites carried by the commercially-produced bumblebee colonies were viable and able to infect other bees.
and develop a parasite-free diet for their bees while regulatory authorities need to strengthen measures to prevent importation of parasite-carrying bumblebee colonies including checking bees on arrival in the UK
and extending regulations to cover imported colonies of the native subspecies. As well as increasing the prevalence of parasites in wild bumblebees
Many bee species are already showing significant population declines due to multiple factors. The introduction of more or new parasite infections will at a minimum exacerbate this
#Parasites change bees brains, but not their behaviorhoney bees Apis mellifera) infected with the parasitic mite Varroa destructor
or the microsporidia Nosema ceranae have changes in the chemical profile of their skin and in their brains finds research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology.
Despite this parasitized bees were expelled not from the hive which the authors say supports the hypothesis that stressed bees leave the hive altruistically to prevent the spread of infection.
This study from INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) investigated the effect of parasitization on honey bees living in hives at Avignon.
Individual bees were infected with either the ectoparasite Varroa which lives on the bees or endoparasite Nosema
which invades their bodies and reintroduced to the hive. After a few days the effect of infection on bees and their behavior was monitored.
Parasitization caused changes in the levels of active genes in the brains of infected bees.
Varroa altered the activity of 455 genes including genes involved in GABA and serotonin signaling while Nosema affected 57.
Twenty genes were common between the two infections and several of the up-regulated genes are involved in oxidative stress neural function and foraging behavior.
Parasitized bees also tended to have a higher viral infection as well adding to their disease burden
Hydrocarbons on the cuticle of bees provide a'family'scent allowing bees from the same hive to recognize each other.
-or ectoparasite nevertheless infected bees were treated as normal by other bees--social interactions including antennal contact grooming feeding
Dr Cynthia Mcdonnell who led this study commented Parasitized bees tend to leave the colony earlier to perform foraging activity
However very few studies have analyzed the impact of parasites on bee phenotypes e g. brain and behavior.
We found that parasitized bees were attacked not by their nestmates suggesting that they leave the hive voluntarily perhaps in response to the changes in gene expression in their brains.
The study published in the online journal PLOS ONE supports the recent decision taken by the European commission to temporarily ban three neonicotinoids amid concerns that they could be linked to bee deaths.
Should the bees be exposed to additional stresses such as pests disease and bad weather then it is likely to increase the rate of development failure.
The study was funded by The Cooperative Group as part of its Plan Bee campaign. Chris Shearlock Sustainable Development Manager at The Cooperative said:
As part of our Plan Bee campaign launched in 2009 we have adopted a precautionary approach and prohibited the use of six neonicotinoid pesticides including imidacloprid on our own-brand fresh and frozen produce
How patterns on flowers help bees spot their first nectar-rich flowerbumblebees searching for nectar go for signposts on flowers rather than the bull's eye.
n and Catherine Plowright from the University of Ottawa in Canada shows that the markings at the center of a flower are not as important as the markings that will direct the bees to the center.
The first time bees go out looking for nectar which visual stimuli do they use to identify that first flower that will provide them with the reward they are looking for?
versus pattern position in a group of bumblebees that have searched never for nectar before i e. flower-naive bees.
and video recordings the researchers exposed a total of over 500 flower-naive bees to two types of patterns on artificial clay flowers:
Bees preferred radial patterns over concentric patterns. When the influence of radial patterns in the center was compared with the influence of radial patterns on the periphery there was little difference in the bees'response.
It appears that the visual cues from the radial pattern guide the bees to the periphery of the flower.
Once there they will find the rewarding nectar in the center of the flower. The researchers conclude:
The behavior of bees has been shaped over the course of evolution as adaptations to flower appearance.
Equally floral appearance has evolved in ways that cater towards bees'visual and olfactory abilities. Flowers may be taking advantage of a principle that will be familiar to students and teachers alike:
the bees need not be shown the food itself but rather how to find it. Story Source:
#Genetic diversity key to survival of honey bee colonieswhen it comes to honey bees more mates is better.
A new study from North carolina State university the University of Maryland and the U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) shows that genetic diversity is key to survival in honey bee colonies--a colony is less likely to survive
Tarpy took genetic samples from 80 commercial colonies of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in the eastern United states to assess each colony's genetic diversity which reflects the number of males a colony's queen has mated with.
--which is a full working season for commercial bee colonies. The researchers found that colonies where the queen had mated at least seven times were 2. 86 times more likely to survive the 10-month working season.
This study confirms that genetic diversity is enormously important in honey bee populations Tarpy says.
And it also offers some guidance to beekeepers about breeding strategies that will help their colonies survive.
The paper Genetic diversity affects colony survivorship in commercial honey bee colonies was published online this month in the journal Naturwissenschaften.
#Pollinators easily enhanced by flowering agri-environment schemesagri-environment schemes aimed to promote biodiversity on farmland have positive effects on wild bees hoverflies and butterflies.
Wild bees are excellent pollinators and common species do just the trick. All you have to do to enhance the wild pollinators of crops on farmland is increase flower abundance in field margins roadsides or crop edges.'
Also endangered bee species often specialize on flowers that cannot easily be established on farmland such as heather or bilberry.
#Gene that helps honey bees find flowers (and get back home) discoveredhoney bees don't start out knowing how to find flowers
or even how to get around outside the hive. Before they can forage they must learn how to navigate a changing landscape
and the detection of novelty in vertebrates also kicks into high gear in the brains of honey bees
whenever bees try to find their way around an unfamiliar environment the researchers observed. This gene is the insect equivalent of a transcription factor found in mammals.
it increased only in response to the bees'exposure to an unfamiliar environment. Even seasoned foragers had an uptick in Egr activity
This discovery gives us an important lead in figuring out how honey bees are able to navigate so well with such a tiny brain said Gene Robinson a professor of entomology
But it is how you manage the system from a bigger picture--there are a lot of things you can do including trying to find ways to give residents alternative sources of income such as beekeeping handicraft production and community-based ecotourism.
#Bee and wild flower biodiversity loss slowsdeclines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years according to a new study.
But the picture brightened markedly after 1990 with a slowdown in local and national biodiversity losses among bees hoverflies and wild plants.
The picture was better for other wild bees with an 8 per cent reduction in diversity in The netherlands and a stable picture in Great britain turning into significant increases (7 per cent in The netherlands and 10
While these solitary bees continued to decline in Belgium hoverfly diversity improved there shifting from stable diversity in the 1980s to significant (20 per cent) increases in recent decades.
This paper builds on a widely-publicised study we published in 2006 that established that the diversity of bees
and the United states used historical and contemporary records of species'presence held by organizations including the European Invertebrate Survey Butterfly Conservation the Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society the INBO Research Institute
#Insecticides lead to starvation of aquatic organismsneonicotinoid insecticides have adverse effects not only on bees but also on freshwater invertebrates.
and are contributing to the decline of bee colonies. Problems seen with constant exposurean Eawag study published today in the journal PLOS ONE (Public library of Science) now shows that at least one of the insecticides in this class also has toxic effects on freshwater invertebrates.
#Bees survival: ban more pesticides? Neonicotinoids are under intense scrutiny. But a ban of a broad variety of pesticides may be required to protect bees humans and the environment.
The European commission on 29th april 2013 slapped a two-year ban on insecticides suspected of killing off bee colonies.
This follows the European Food safety Authority finding that they pose a high acute risk to honey bees.
Studies suggest that the nicotine-like compounds fry bees'navigation systems and leave them unable to learn
while weakening their immune system. But scientists now warn that other nerve agents targeting insect pests may also be harming bees and other pollinators.
These neonicotinoids are just one of hundreds of compounds being used and I would be surprised if it was all down to just these chemicals says Christopher Connolly a neuroscientist at the University of Dundee UK.
Pesticides not adequately testedconnolly exposed bee brains to these pesticides and organo-based pesticides andreported that the nerves spun into hyperactivity
because safety screens looked to see how many honey bees die after four days exposure. But harm is only evident over a period of two weeks in bumblebees
beneficial insects such as ladybirds and bees are exposed to lots of different chemicals and we have a really poor understanding of
Where you do get large-scale bee deaths not enough has been done to know exactly what has happened Little commented.
and nesting sites are most likely behind bee declines. France has had restrictions of neonicotinoids over the last ten years yet the bees there remain as bad if not worse than they are in the UK.
Avoidance of pesticide usea possible solution to preserve bee populations further would be to restore the principle of avoidance of pesticide use.
The whole ethos of pest management has gone in the wrong direction Goulson argues. Whereas integrated pest management sought to use as few pesticides as possible the neonicotinoids are a preventive strike.
This is a great opportunity for farmers to adopt these practices to protect bees and other pollinators.
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