Kenyan beekeepers believe that bee populations have been experiencing declines in recent years but our results suggest that the common causes for colony losses in the United states
and Europe--parasites pathogens and pesticides--do not seem to be affecting Kenyan bees at least not yet said Christina Grozinger professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research Penn State.
which the bees get all their food may be the more important factor driving these declines.
This is the first comprehensive survey of bee health in East Africa where we have examined diseases genetics
and the environment to better understand what factors are most important in bee health in this region said Grozinger.
We suspect the seemingly greater tolerance of African bees to these pests over the western bees is a combination of genes and environment.
and viruses the researchers recommend that beekeepers in East Africa maintain healthy bee populations by protecting vital nesting habitat
and the native flowering plant diversity that the bees depend on for food. In addition the researchers suggest that beekeepers use pesticides sparingly.
because it confirms the resilience of African bees despite the heavy presence of recently introduced Varroa mites
and as landscape degradation increases due to increased urbanization farming and climate change we expect to see the combination of all these factors negatively impact the bees in the future Grozinger said.
and support economically valuable pollinators such as bees and bats and provide ecosystem services such as filtering water
#Attracting wild bees to farms is good insurance policyinvesting in habitat that attracts and supports wild bees in farms is not only an effective approach to helping enhance crop pollination
but it can also pay for itself in four years or less according to Michigan State university research.
Other studies have demonstrated that creating flowering habitat will attract wild bees and a few have shown that this can increase yields he said.
The fields were pollinated by honey bees but Isaacs and Brett Blaauw MSU graduate student were interested in
whether increasing the wild bee population would improve pollination in nearby crop fields. The results weren't immediate
In the first two years as the plantings established we found little to no increase in the number of wild bees he said.
After that though the number of wild bees was twice as high as those found in our control fields that had no habitat improvements.
Once the wild bees were more abundant more flowers turned into blueberries and the blueberries had more seeds
With 420 species of wild bees in Michigan alone it makes sense to attract as many free pollinators as possible.
However this doesn't mean that this approach would replace honey bees which are trucked in via beekeepers
Honey bees do a great job of pollinating blueberries and we're not suggesting that growers stop using them he said.
But our research shows that adding some wild bee habitat to the farm can increase bee abundance in the nearby crop can be profitable
Establishing habitat for wild bees requires an initial investment but there are existing federal and statewide programs such as the USDA's Conservation Reserve Program
#Dry future climate could reduce orchid bee habitatduring Pleistocene era climate changes neotropical orchid bees that relied on year-round warmth
and genetic data to understand bee distributions during past climate changes. In previous studies researchers have tracked male and female orchid bees
and found that while females stay near their nests male orchid bees travel with one study concluding they roam as far as 7 kilometers per day.
These past findings corroborated by genetic data in the current study reveal that males are more mobile than females.
if the tendency is to have lower precipitation in combination with deforestation the suitable habitat for the bees is going to be reduced said Margarita LÃ pez-Uribe the paper's first author and a graduate student at Cornell.
since male orchid bees habitually travel far they can keep bee populations connected and healthy.
This is a possible mechanism bees could use to ameliorate the negative impacts of population isolation resulting from future climate changes and deforestation.
and bee distributions LÃ pez-Uribe and colleagues assessed parameters of climate conditions that each of three bee species within the genus Eulaema could tolerate physiologically including temperature and precipitation variability.
By proceeding with the caveat that physiological tolerance has remained constant--species tend to be evolutionarily conservative about shifting their niches--the researchers used computer models to simulate past bee distributions based on climate conditions in the Pleistocene.
Climate and ecological niche computer model simulations were matched closely by genetic data of the two less-tolerant orchid bee species. The genetic data included mitochondrial markers
The MITOCHONDRIAL DNA showed that individual bees in one geographic area were more closely related to each other than to bees from other areas.
The findings suggest the maternal lines of these bees remained in the area and shared the same pools of DNA over time.
Orchid bees live in the neotropics an ecozone that includes part of South and Central america the Mexican lowlands and the Caribbean islands.
They are one of the most important pollinators visiting many types of plants including some 700 species of orchids that are pollinated exclusively by these bees.
But other species--and in particular long-tongued bees--do concentrate their feeding upon plants from the UK and Europe for
and northern Asia) and non-Palaearctic garden plants bees simply visited plants in proportion to flower availability. Indeed of the six most commonly visited garden plants only one--Foxglove--was a British native and only three of Palaearctic origin.
Dr Hanley added As a general rule bees will go wherever there are flowers available. However if native plants were to disappear completely from our towns
#Bees capable of learning feats with tasty prize in sightthey may have tiny brains but bumblebees are capable of some remarkable learning feats especially
Peter Kevan School of Environmental sciences are studying bees'ability to learn by themselves and from each other.
In the first study published in February in Animal Cognition the researchers found bees capable of learning to solve increasingly complex problems.
The researchers presented bees with a series of artificial flowers that required evermore challenging strategies such as moving objects aside or upwards to gain a sugar syrup reward.
When inexperienced bees encountered the most complex flower first they were unable to access the syrup reward
Bees allowed to progress through increasingly complex flowers were able to navigate the most difficult ones.
Bees with experience are able to solve new problems that they encounter while bees with no experience just give up said Mirwan.
She and Kevan consider the study an example of scaffold learning a concept normally restricted to human psychology in
In a second study recently published in Psychethe researchers found bees learned by watching and communicating with other bees a process called social learning.
Mirwan made artificial flowers requiring the bees to walk on the underside of a disk to get a sugar syrup reward.
These experienced bees foraged on the artificial flowers for several days until they became accustomed to feeding at them.
To see whether other bees could learn from the experienced foragers Mirwan confined inexperienced bees in a mesh container near the artificial flowers where they could observe the experienced bees.
When the naã ve bees were allowed to forage on the artificial flowers they took just 70 seconds to get the reward.
Control bees that had observed not the experienced bees could not access the syrup. Social learning in animals usually involves one individual observing
and imitating another although other kinds of communication can also be involved said Mirwan. They could try for up to 30 minutes
In a final test Mirwan placed experienced bees in a hive with naive bees. When the naive bees were allowed to forage on the artificial flowers they gained the syrup in just 3. 5 minutes.
Behavioural scientists usually assume that observation and imitation are at the heart of social learning
but social insects such as bees can also transmit information through touch vibration and smell. The researchers said the communication method used by the bees is still a mystery.
We can't quite explain how bees that had seen never even an artificial flower were able to become adept so quickly at foraging on them
but clearly some in-hive communication took place said Kevan. It suggests that social learning in bumblebees is even more complex than we first expected.
The new research recently reported in PLOS ONE builds on previous Oxford university research showing that elephants call'bee-ware
'and run away from the sound of angry bees. Whilst the'bee'and'human'rumbling alarm calls might sound similar to our ears there are important differences at low (infrasonic) frequencies that elephants can hear
but humans can't.'Elephants appear to be able to manipulate their vocal tract (mouth tongue trunk and so on) to shape the sounds of their rumbles to make different alarm calls'said Dr Lucy King of Save the Elephants
'Elephant'human'alarm call rumblesignificantly the reaction to the human alarm call included none of the head-shaking behaviour displayed by elephants hearing the bee alarm.
When threatened by bees elephants shake their heads in an effort to knock the insects away as well as running
or up their trunks whilst calves could potentially be killed by a swarm of stinging bees as they have yet to develop a thick protective skin.
'Interestingly the acoustic analysis done by Joseph Soltis at his Disney laboratory showed that the difference between the''bee alarm rumble
which can change the meaning of words (think of''boo''and''bee'')''Elephants use similar vowellike changes in their rumbles to differentiate the type of threat they experience
Armed with the knowledge that elephants are afraid of bees Lucy and Save the Elephants have built scores of'beehive fences'around local farms that protect precious fields from crop-raiding elephants.'
'Learning more about how elephants react to threats such as bees and humans will help us design strategies to reduce human-elephant conflict
#Virtual bees help to unravel complex causes of colony declinescientists have created an ingenious computer model that simulates a honey bee colony over the course of several years.
which simulates the life of a colony including the queen's egg laying brood care by nurse bees
It is a real challenge to understand which factors are most important in affecting bee colony growth and survival.
and anyone interested in bees to predict colony development and honey production under different environmental conditions and beekeeping practices.
The use of this model by a variety of stakeholders could stimulate the development of new approaches to bee management pesticide risk assessment and landscape management.
Professor Osborne's research group studies the behaviour and ecology of bees and other pollinators.
and industry with the aim of conserving bee populations and protecting and promoting wild flower and crop pollination.
Healthy bees are vital to our food supply as they pollinate many important crops. This virtual hive is an important new research tool to help us understand how changes to the environment impact on bee health.
Dr Pernille Thorbek (Syngenta) adds: Studying several stressors in multifactorial field trials is complicated immensely and difficult to do.
and impact of the diverse stressors to which honey bee colonies can be exposed. Not only will it be invaluable for scientific research purposes
The new system utilizes a bee smoker heater hose and water aspirator. Water-soluble compounds are dissolved by bubbling smoke through water contained in a flask.
and using antibiotics in hives to keep the bees disease-free. To help regulate honey safety We have strict import laws that apply to honey coming from certain countries he says.
Without them and without the bees they raise many of our food crops would not get pollinated
If beekeeping becomes a money-losing business in the U s. there will soon be fewer bees
or apples both pollinated by bees costing $5 each because so few are produced without adequate pollination.
#As hubs for bees, pollinators, flowers may be crucial in disease transmissionlike a kindergarten or a busy airport where cold viruses and other germs circulate freely flowers are common gathering places where pollinators such as bees
and butterflies can pick up fungal bacterial or viral infections that might be as benign as the sniffles
#Managed honeybees linked to new diseases in wild bees, UK study showsdiseases that are managed common in honeybee colonies are now widespread in the UK's wild bumblebees according to research published in Nature.
supports wild bee populations. Dr FÃ rst from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway said:
Wild and managed bees are in decline at national and global scales. Given their central role in pollinating wildflowers
Our results suggest that emerging diseases spread from managed bees may be an important cause of wild bee decline.
or virus particle on the flowers that they visit and these may then infect wild bees.
and managed bees. Professor Brown added: National societies and agencies both in the UK and globally currently manage so-called honeybee diseases on the basis that they are a threat only to honeybees.
#Urban bees using plastic to build hivesonce the snow melts Canada's bee population will be back in business--pollinating making honey
and keeping busy doing bee things. For at least two urban bee species that means making nests out of plastic waste.
A new study by a University of Guelph graduate and a U of G scientist reveals that some bees use bits of plastic bags
and plastic building materials to construct their nests. The research was published recently in the journal Ecosphere.
because it shows bees'resourcefulness and flexibility in adapting to a human-dominated world says lead author Scott Macivor a doctoral student at York University and a 2008 U of G graduate.
We found two solitary bee species using plastic in place of natural nest building materials which suggests innovative use of common urban materials.
Figuring out that the bees were using plastics in place of natural materials took some detective work by U of G's Andrew Moore supervisor of analytical microscopy at Laboratory Services.
Moore analyzed a grey goo that Macivor discovered in the nests of one kind of bee Megachile campanulae
The researchers also discovered another kind of bee Megachile rotundata an alfalfa leafcutter was using pieces of polyethylene-based plastic bags to construct its brood cells.
Markings showed that the bees chewed the plastic differently than they did leaves suggesting that the insects had collected not incidentally plastic.
Nor were leaves hard to find for the bees in the study. The plastic materials had been gathered by the bees
and then worked--chewed up and spit out like gum--to form something new that they could use Moore said.
In fact the bees emerged parasite-free suggesting plastic nests may physically impede parasites the study said.
The nests containing plastic were among more than 200 artificial nest boxes monitored by Macivor as part of a large-scale investigation of the ecology of urban bees
They are used by a variety of bee species. The novel use of plastics in the nests of bees could reflect the ecologically adaptive traits necessary for survival in an increasingly human-dominated environment Macivor said.
and Environment did not see a drop in the number of pollinators such as bees in the fields.
and in different contexts then perhaps model organisms--such as bees and mice--can provide insights into the biological basis of aggression in all animals including humans the researchers said.
Specifically we looked at aggressive behavior in wasps bees fruit flies and mice and found a few genes that are associated consistently with aggression.
The team then compared the wasp results to gene expression data already available in honey bees fruit flies and mice.
In contrast in honey bees which are advanced social insects aggression genes control altruistic defensive behavior--for example
when guard bees sting a predator or even a beekeeper and die in the process.
According to Grozinger the results suggest that model organisms--such as bees and mice--can be used to study aggression in humans
Teamwork on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjarosteffan-Dewenter and his doctoral student Alice Classen therefore wanted to understand how bees birds bats and other animals contribute to pollination
Bees and other insects should actually be redundant here as the examined coffee variety Coffea arabica is self-pollinating.
bees and other pollinators ensure better quality. â#Same effect with all cultivation systemsto the surprise of the researchers intensified farming seems to have no negative effect:
This is due to the fact that they registered merely one type of visitor honey bees to the blossoms.
however they additionally recorded wild bees hoverflies and butterflies. So if honey bee numbers were to decrease as they might in climatically unfavorable years this could reduce the harvest in the sun plantations.
Findings of a DFG research groupthese findings have been published in the journal â#oeproceedings of the Royal Society Bâ#.
and in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s when they studied the effects of the arrival of Africanized bees on native bees.
in addition to pollen from many wild plant species. The pollen came from crops near the bee colonies in several small apiaries.
The regional agricultural authorities furthermore seemed unaware that bees visited flowering soybeans to collect nectar and pollen.
Bee colonies act as extremely sensitive environmental indicators. Bees from a single colony may gather nectar and pollen resources from flowers in a 200-square-kilometer area.
With an economy based on subsistence agriculture associated with honey production the social implications of this shift in the status of honey are likely to be contentious
#Uncovering the drivers of honey bee colony declines and lossesscientists have announced the results of research conducted on honey bee colony declines
and the factors attributed to honey bee losses. In a paper published this week in the journal Ecohealth scientists at Ecohealth Alliance investigated the causes of long-term declines of colony numbers and annual colony losses.
The work shows that socioeconomic and political pressures on honey production over the past few decades has caused a long-term reduction in the number of colonies in production in the USA Europe and many other countries.
However more recently honey bee managers have reported increased losses in their stocks each year (so-called'annual colony losses)
Honey bees provide ecosystem services through pollination of crops worth $215 billion annually worldwide. Concern over honey bee declines in recent decades as well as annual losses has sparked debate over their causes
and has led to hypotheses that a specific novel syndrome'Colony Collapse Disorder'(CCD) is plaguing bee populations.
Many scientists have proposed new drivers such as pollution from pesticides as the cause of these declines.
1. The long-term multi-decadal downward trend in the number of bee colonies in many countries reflects a reduction in the profitability of bee keeping due to economic
and/or political change with many bee keepers leaving the profession; 2. Data on annual losses is collected sparse
(and thus potentially bee keepers) define CCD suggesting that it may be reported over; and4. That the major causes of annual losses include pests (e g. the Varroa mite) pathogens (e g. viruses that these mites carry) and the need for research and advancements in management techniques available for large-scale apiaries
'and bees are no exception--the role of introduced mites and the pathogens they carry is researched under
This in conjunction with the 300 percent rise in pollinator-dependent crops requires the industry to manage honey bees like never before;
millions of honey bees are moved across the country annually to pollinate crops. One factor that is vital to understanding the metrics of long-term colony declines lies in the methodology of counting colonies.
Bee management specialists and veterinarians need to support bee keepers with information tools and resources to adapt to a swiftly growing production system said Dr. Kristine Smith Wildlife Veterinarian and Associate Director of Health and Policy at Ecohealth Alliance.
The issues surrounding honey bee colony declines and honey bee losses requires extensive standardized data collection increased surveillance and surveys of management practices and further research.
the toll of agricultural intensification on this semi-free ranging managed species and the confounding pressure of viruses spread through Varroa mites and the burden of these viruses and mites at the individual bee and colony level.
'For pollinators such as bees the number of different species was 50%higher on organic farms although it is important to note that the study only looked at'species richness'.'
Taking the example of bees species richness would tell us how many different species of bee were on each farm but not the total number of bees.'
#Single gene separates queen from workersscientists have identified how a single gene in honey bees separates the queens from the workers.
and wing development plays a crucial role in the evolution of bees'ability to carry pollen.
In bumble bees which are in the same family as honey bees queens have pollen baskets similar to workers.
In this species Ubx played a similar role in modifying hind legs because the gene is expressed more highly in hind legs compared to front and mid legs.
Besides honey bees which aren't native to North america there are more than 300 species of other bees in Michigan alone.
These include solitary leaf cutter bees communal sweat bees and social bumble bees. The pollen baskets are much less elaborate
or completely absent in bees that are less socially complex Huang said. We conclude that the evolution of pollen baskets is a major innovation among social insects
and is tied directly to more-complex social behaviors. Future research by Huang may pursue investigating how bees could be improved to become better pollinators.
While this won't provide a solution to bee colony collapse disorder it could provide an option for improving the shrinking population of bees'pollen-collecting capacity.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Michigan State university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
We found that four of the pesticides most commonly found in beehives kill bee larvae said Jim Frazier professor of entomology Penn State.
According to Frazier the team's previous research demonstrated that forager bees bring back to the hive an average of six different pesticides on the pollen they collect.
Nurse bees use this pollen to make beebread which they then feed to honeybee larvae.
and chlorpyrifos--on bee larvae the researchers reared honeybee larvae in their laboratory. They then applied the pesticides alone
The team fed their treated diet containing various types and concentrations of chemicals to the laboratory-raised bee larvae.
or they may indirectly kill them by disrupting the beneficial fungi that are essential for nurse bees to process pollen into beebread.
or direct poisoning with a resulting impact on the survival and development of the entire bee brood he said.
because it is deemed currently safe to bees. Chlorpyrifos is used a widely organophosphate in crop management.
and solvents of known high toxicity to fish amphibians honey bees and other non-target organisms.
#Pathogenic plant virus jumps to honeybees, may explain bee population declinea viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees
The routine screening of bees for frequent and rare viruses resulted in the serendipitous detection of Tobacco Ringspot Virus
whether this plant-infecting virus could also cause systemic infection in the bees says Yan Ping Chen from the U s. Department of agriculture's Agricultural research service (ARS) laboratory in Beltsville Maryland an author on the study.
Toxic viral cocktails appear to have a strong link with honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) a mysterious malady that abruptly wiped out entire hives across the United states
Israel Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV) Chronic Paralysis Virus (CPV) Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV) Deformed Wing
Bee Virus (DWV) Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood Virus (SBV) are known other causes of honeybee viral disease.
When these researchers investigated bee colonies classified as strong or weak TRSV and other viruses were more common in the weak colonies than they were in the strong ones.
Bee populations with high levels of multiple viral infections began failing in late fall and perished before February these researchers report.
TRSV was detected also inside the bodies of Varroa mites a vampire parasite that transmits viruses between bees while feeding on their blood.
The increasing prevalence of TRSV in conjunction with other bee viruses is associated with a gradual decline of host populations
which is used on flowering crops to prevent insect damage reduces the size of individual bees produced by a colony.
The scientists tracked how the bee colonies grew over a four month period recording their size
and weighing bees on micro-scales as well as monitoring the number of queens and male bees produced by the colony.
Our result revealing that this pesticide causes bees to hatch out at a smaller size is of concern as the size of workers produced in the field is likely to be a key component of colony success with smaller bees being less efficient at collecting nectar
The topical research is at the heart of a national Bee Health Conference running in London.
Bumblebees are essential to our food chain so it's critical we understand how wild bees might be impacted by the chemicals we are putting into the environment.
and ensure we are not harming our bees in the process. Given the current EU moratorium on the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides the use of other classes of pesticide including pyrethroids is likely to increase.
Dr Nigel Raine who Is invited an Speaker at this week's bee conference said: Our work provides a significant step forward in understanding the detrimental impact of pesticides other than neonicotinoids on wild bees.
Further studies using colonies placed in the field are essential to understand the full impacts
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