whether bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) can learn the polarization patterns of artificial'flowers 'in order to obtain a food reward.
They found that freely foraging bumblebees soon learnt to differentiate between rewarding (sucrose solution providing) and aversive (quinine solution providing) artificial'flowers'with two different polarization patterns.
#Parasites fail to halt European bumblebee invasion of the UKA species of bee from Europe that has stronger resistance to parasite infections than native bumblebees has spread across the UK according to new research at Royal Holloway
The study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology shows that tree bumblebees have rapidly spread
despite them carrying high levels of an infection that normally prevents queen bees from producing colonies.
Researchers collected tree bumblebee queens from the wild checked them for parasites and then monitored colony development in a laboratory
Scientists believe the spread of tree bumblebees could have both positive and negative impacts on native bees.
Since its arrival to the UK the tree bumblebee has been rapidly spreading despite high levels of this castrating parasite said researcher Catherine Jones from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway.
and the populations of our native bumblebees have declined in recent decades. The arrival of tree bumblebees could be hugely beneficial to us by absorbing parasite pressure from our native species as well as helping to pollinate wild plants and crops.
Professor Mark Brown from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway added: While these findings show promising signs for bee populations in the UK we still don't know
if the bumblebees compete for food or nesting sites. Further research should focus on how our native bees are affected
and a plant protein has been found to be safe for honeybees --despite being highly toxic to a number of key insect pests.
Feeding acute and chronic doses to honeybees--beyond the levels they would ever experience in the field--the team found it had only a very slight effect on the bees'survival and no measurable effect at all on their learning and memory.
Honeybees perform sophisticated behaviors while foraging that require them to learn and remember floral traits associated with food.
Disruption to this important function has profound implications for honeybee colony survival because bees that cannot learn will not be able to find food and return to their hives.
By pollinating some key crop species honeybees make a vital contribution to food security. The decline of these insects raises significant concerns about our ability to feed a growing population.
Our findings suggest that Hv1a/GNA is unlikely to cause any detrimental effects on honeybees.
Although Hv1a/GNA was carried to the brain of the honeybee it had no effect on the insect
Dr Geraldine Wright one of the authors on the paper heads up Newcastle University's Honeybee Lab. Last year she led the research
by listening in on the conversations honeybees have with each other. The scientists'analyses of honeybee waggle dances reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 22 suggest that costly measures to set aside agricultural lands
and let the wildflowers grow can be very beneficial to bees. In the past two decades the European union has spent â1 billion on agri-environment schemes which aim to improve the rural landscape health
Our work uses a novel source of data--the honeybee an organism that itself can benefit from a healthy rural landscape--to evaluate
The study shows that honeybees can serve as bioindicators to monitor large land areas and provide information relevant to better environmental management the researchers say.
It also gives new meaning to the term worker bee. Imagine the time manpower and cost to survey such an area on foot--to monitor nectar sources for quality and quantity of production to count the number of other flower-visiting insects to account for competition
Instead we have let the honeybees do the hard work of surveying the landscape and integrating all relevant costs and then providing through their dance communication this biologically relevant information about landscape quality.
honey bees bumble bees southeastern blueberry bees carpenter bees and a functionally similar collection of species that they termed small native bees.
#Scientists link Africanized honeybees changing roles throughout their lives to brain chemistryscientists have been linking an increasing range of behaviors
To that growing list they're adding division of labor--at least in killer bees. A report published in ACS'Journal of Proteome Research presents new data that link the amounts of certain neuropeptides in these notorious bees'brains with their jobs inside and outside the hive.
Bee researchers had observed already that honeybees including Africanized Apis mellifera better known as killer bees divide tasks by age.
and location in the brains of the honeybees in a way that mirrored the timing of their changing roles.
Thus these neuropeptides appear to have some functions in the honeybee brain that are specifically related to the age-related division of labor the scientists conclude.
The study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that past experience of predation causes bumblebees to join other bees already safely feeding on flowers.
In safe environments the bumblebees subsequently chose to feed from flowers at random but in dangerous environments the bees specifically flew to flowers that were occupied by other bees.
Bumblebees face similar danger when foraging for food. Avoiding being eaten can be tricky as predators are disguised often or undetectable.
#East African honeybees safe from invasive pests...for nowseveral parasites and pathogens that devastate honeybees in Europe Asia
and the United states are spreading across East Africa but do not appear to be impacting native honeybee populations at this time according to an international team of researchers.
The invasive pests include including Nosema microsporidia and Varroa mites. Our East African honeybees appear to be resilient to these invasive pests
which suggests to us that the chemicals used to control pests in Europe Asia and the United states currently are not necessary in East Africa said Elliud Muli senior lecturer in the Department of Biological sciences South Eastern Kenya University and researcher at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
This new study also provides baseline data for future analyses of possible threats to African honeybee populations.
According to Harland Patch research scientist in entomology Penn State not only are flowering plants important for honeybees
Honeybees are pollinators of untold numbers of plants in every ecosystem on the African continent Patch said.
or the elephant but honeybees are more essential and their decline would have profound impacts across the continent.
and sizes of honeybee colonies assess the presence or absence of Varroa and Nosema parasites and viruses identify
In addition Varroa numbers increased with elevation suggesting that environmental factors may play a role in honeybee host-parasite interactions.
while Varroa infestation dramatically reduces honeybee colony survival in the United states and Europe in Kenya its presence alone does not appear to impact colony size.
Of the seven common honeybee viruses in the United states and Europe the team only identified three species
The Africanized bees--the so-called'killer bees'--in The americas seem to be having no problem with Varroa or diseases so
Given their findings that African honeybees currently appear to be resilient to the effects of parasites
These newly introduced pests to Africa might have long-term implications for the honeybee populations.
#Diversity in UK gardens aiding fight to save threatened bumblebees, study suggestsecologists at Plymouth University in a study published this week have shown the most common species of bumblebee are not fussy about a plant's origin when searching for nectar and pollen among the nation's urban gardens.
But other species--and in particular long-tongued bees--do concentrate their feeding upon plants from the UK and Europe for
whether bumblebees preferentially visited plants with which they share a common biogeographical heritage with researchers conducting summer-long surveys along a typical residential street.
Among individual species however there were distinct preferences with the long-tongued'garden bumblebee'(Bombus hortorum) showing a strong preference for'native'Palaearctic-origin garden plants choosing them for 78%of its flower visits.
Meanwhile the UK's most common species--the'buff-tailed bumblebee'(Bombus terrestris)--favoured non-Palaearctic garden plants over species with
and cities the long-term survival of some of our common pollinators--like the'garden bumblebee'--could be in jeopardy.
or other green spaces a combination of commonly-grown garden plants from all around the globe will help support our urban bumblebees for future generations.
but bumblebees are capable of some remarkable learning feats especially when they might get a tasty reward according to two studies by University of Guelph researchers.
It suggests that social learning in bumblebees is even more complex than we first expected. Story Source:
and communicate about honeybees and humans is being used to reduce human-elephant conflict in Kenya.
The BEEHAVE model published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology was created to investigate the losses of honeybee colonies that have been reported in recent years
and to identify the best course of action for improving honeybee health. A team of scientists led by Professor Juliet Osborne from the Environment and Sustainability Institute University of Exeter (and previously at Rothamsted Research) developed BEEHAVE
To build the simulation the scientists brought together existing honeybee research and data to develop a new model that integrated processes occurring inside and outside the hive.
and beekeeping practices will benefit honeybees the most. Dr David Aston President of The british Beekeepers Association commented that:
#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.
The study suggests that some diseases are being driven into wild bumblebee populations from managed honeybees.
Dr Matthias FÃ rst and Professor Mark Brown from Royal Holloway University of London (who worked in collaboration with Dr Dino Mcmahon
and Professor Robert Paxton at Queen's university Belfast and Professor Juliet Osborne working at Rothamsted Research and the University of Exeter) say the research provides vital information for beekeepers across the world to ensure honeybee management
This research assessed common honeybee diseases to determine if they could pass from honeybees to bumblebees.
It showed that deformed wing virus (DWV) and the fungal parasite Nosema ceranae--both of which have major negative impacts on honeybee health--can infect worker bumblebees
and in the case of DWV reduce their lifespan. Honeybees and bumblebees were collected then from 26 sites across the UK
and screened for the presence of the parasites. Both parasites were widespread in bumblebees and honeybees across the UK.
Dr FÃ rst explained: One of the novel aspects of our study is that we show that deformed wing virus
which is one of the main causes of honeybee deaths worldwide is not only broadly present in bumblebees
Three factors suggest that honeybees are spreading the parasites into wild bumblebees: honeybees have higher background levels of the virus and the fungus than bumblebees;
bumblebee infection is predicted by patterns of honeybee infection; and honeybees and bumblebees at the same sites share genetic strains of DWV.
We have known for a long time that parasites are behind declines in honeybees said Professor Brown. What our data show is that these same pathogens are circulating widely across our wild
and managed pollinators. Infected honeybees can leave traces of disease like a fungal spore or virus particle on the flowers that they visit and these may then infect wild bees.
While recent studies have provided anecdotal reports of the presence of honeybee parasites in other pollinators this is the first study to determine the epidemiology of these parasites across the landscape.
The results suggest an urgent need for management recommendations to reduce the threat of emerging diseases to our wild
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.
While they are doing great work our research shows that this premise is not true
and be designed to reduce the impact of these diseases not just on managed honeybees but on our wild bumblebees too.
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.
and in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s when they studied the effects of the arrival of Africanized bees on native bees.
These include solitary leaf cutter bees communal sweat bees and social bumble bees. The pollen baskets are much less elaborate
#Common crop pesticides kill honeybee larvae in the hivefour pesticides commonly used on crops to kill insects
and fungi also kill honeybee larvae within their hives according to Penn State and University of Florida researchers.
or inactive chemical commonly used as a pesticide additive--is highly toxic to honeybee larvae.
Since pesticide safety is judged almost entirely on adult honeybee sensitivity to individual pesticides and also does not consider mixtures of pesticides the risk assessment process that the Environmental protection agency uses should be changed.
which they then feed to honeybee larvae. To examine the effects of four common pesticides--fluvalinate coumaphos chlorothalonil
and chlorpyrifos--on bee larvae the researchers reared honeybee larvae in their laboratory. They then applied the pesticides alone
or in concert to create a toxic environment for honeybee growth and development. The researchers also investigated the effects of NMP on honeybee larvae by adding seven concentrations of the chemical to a pollen-derived royal jelly diet.
NMP is used to dissolve pesticides into formulations that then allow the active ingredients to spread
Among the four pesticides honeybee larvae were most sensitive to chlorothalonil. They also were affected negatively by a mixture of chlorothalonil with fluvalinate.
According to Chris Mullin professor of entomology Penn State these pesticides may directly poison honeybee larvae
Chronic exposure to pesticides during the early life stage of honeybees may contribute to their inadequate nutrition
when honeybees are present for pollination because it is deemed currently safe to bees. Chlorpyrifos is used a widely organophosphate in crop management.
and chloropyrifos individually or in mixtures have statistically significant impacts on honeybee larval survivorship Mullin said.
This is the first study to report serious toxic effects on developing honeybee larvae of dietary pesticides at concentrations that currently occur in hives.
While we have found that NMP contributes to honeybee larvae mortality the overall role of these inactive ingredients in pollinator decline remains to be determined.
#Pathogenic plant virus jumps to honeybees, may explain bee population declinea viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees
The results of our study provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected
We already know that honeybees Apis melllifera can transmit TRSV when they move from flower to flower likely spreading the virus from one plant to another Chen adds.
Bee Virus (DWV) Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood Virus (SBV) are known other causes of honeybee viral disease.
However unlike honeybees the mite-associated TRSV was restricted to their gastric cecum indicating that the mites likely facilitate the horizontal spread of TRSV within the hive without becoming diseased themselves.
#Exposure to pesticides results in smaller worker beesexposure to a widely used pesticide causes worker bumblebees to grow less
The researchers Gemma Baron Dr Nigel Raine and Professor Mark Brown from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway worked with colonies of bumblebees in their laboratory and exposed half of them to the pesticide.
We already know that larger bumblebees are more effective at foraging. 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 study is the first to examine the impact of pyrethroid pesticides across the entire lifecycle of bumblebees.
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.
#EU policy is driving up demand for pollination faster than honeybee numbersresearch conducted by the University of Reading's Centre for Agri-Environmental Research
The study led by Professor Simon Potts compared the number of available honeybee colonies in 41 European countries with their demands for pollination services in the years 2005 and 2010.
although the total number of honeybee colonies increased in some European countries the demands for the pollination services supplied by these pollinators has increased much faster due to the increasing demand for biofuel feedstocks.
and Italy honeybee stocks were found to be insufficient to supply these pollination services alone.
Dr Tom Breeze who conducted the research said This study has shown that EU biofuel policy has had an unforeseen consequence in making us more reliant upon wild pollinators like bumblebees and hoverflies to meet demands forthis
which the study suggests has now less than 25%of the honeybee colonies it needs. The only country with less security is the Republic of Moldova
if taken as a continuous region where colonies could move freely Europe as a whole only has two thirds of the honeybee colonies it needs with a deficit of over 13.6 million colonies.
A stylish new possibility for urban beekeepersin recent years, honeybee populations have been on the decline.
In fact, last march, the United nations Environmental Program issued a report dubbing honeybee disappearance a global phenomenon.
Wilson-Rich completed his Ph d. in honeybee health in 2005. In 2006, honeybees started disappearing.
We don't even find dead bodies, and it's bizarre. Researchers still do not know what's causing it,
So it's not surprising that they're now on honeybees to help solve a major problem.
Honeybees play an important role in pollinating roughly one-third of global food crops. But they are dying off annually in massive numbers.
Australia's national science agency, The  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), is placing tiny sensors on the backs of 5, 000 honeybees.
a flower that mostly attracts honeybees, would have to be planted. Combine the high-density of bees with the fact that many of the new urban beekeepers are inexperienced and,
Finally, some (sort of) good news about honeybees
Why you need to be biodiversity aware2010 was the year the world s governments agreed to achieve a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional,
For yet another year, nearly one-third of U s. honeybee colonies didn t make it through the winter
Honeybee colony numbers are stable; they have been since before CCD hit the scene in 2006.
After sifting through economic measures on the state of honeybees, economists Randal Rucker and Walter Thurman arrived at this conclusion:
Commercial queen breeders can rear large numbers of queen bees quickly, putting little to no upward pressure on bee prices following CCD.
The cost of CCD on almonds, one of the most important crops from a honeybee pollinating perspective,
Honeybee decline spells trouble for our food supplybillions of honeybees have died worldwide since 2006. Coined the colony collapse disorder (CCD),
Honeybees pollinate close to 90 crops such as avocados, cucumbers, sprouts, apples, onions, broccoli, coffee and tomatoes.
So what exactly is making the honeybees disappear? New research out of the University of Montana suggests there's a link between the CCD
German airports use honeybees to sniff out air quality
Hong kong cracks down on trade in baby formulamilk formula is sold alongside Chinese herbs. HONG KONG--Hong kong parents have been contending with a frustrating shortage of infant milk formula.
what a honeybee sees. The system could be applied to flying vehicles like drones and robots.
which is used by honeybees to recognize flowers. The paper, which requires registration and is available for free for 30 days,
(1996 Phd Thesis Australian National University) to the full FOV which enables us to remap camera images according to the spatial resolution of honeybee eyes.
which worker bees fail to return to their hives, leaving the colony to fend for itself. But it's not just tiny startups with apiaries,
and sour milk German airports use honeybees to sniff out air quality Breath test can detect cancer New remote sensing system can detect explosives
Bumblebees become precision farm workersscientists at ADAS and East Malling Research have come up with a novel way of using bumble bees to deliver minute quantities of bio-fungicide to strawberry flowers.
the government's National Bee Unit-set up to protect the honeybee in England and Wales-says it is"aware"of an increase in thefts.
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