In the European honey bee (Apis mellifera), the olfactory system is essential for foraging and intraspecific communication via pheromones. Honey bees are equipped with a large repertoire of olfactory receptors belonging to the insect odorant receptor (OR) family. Previous studies have indicated that the transcription level of a few OR types including OR11, a receptor…
Environmental monitoring involves the quantification of microscopic cells and particles such as algae, plant cells, pollen, or fungal spores. Traditional methods using conventional microscopy require expert knowledge, are time-intensive and not well-suited for automated high throughput. Multispectral imaging flow cytometry (MIFC) allows measurement of up to 5000 particles per second from a fluid suspension and…
The increasing loss of honey bee colonies is assumed to be caused by various factors such as habitat degradation, parasites, pathogens, or the exposure to environmental pollutants like pesticides in agriculture practice. Different bee-related products like honey, bee bread, wax, and pollen can be contaminated by pesticides and some of them might affect colony health.…
To avoid potential adverse side effects of chemical plant protection products, microbial pest control products (MPCP) are commonly applied as biological alternatives. This study aimed to evaluate the biosafety of a MPCP with the active organism Bacillus thuringiensis ssp. aizawai (strain: ABTS-1857). An in-hive feeding experiment was performed under field-realistic conditions to examine the effect…
This mini-review aims at raising the interest in contractile phage tail-like particles (CPTPs) of bacteria as an efficient and pest-specific alternative to conventional chemical pesticides in agriculture, horticulture and forestry. CPTPs are used by various bacteria in diverse environments for interbacterial competition or for manipulation of eukaryotic hosts, such as fungi or insects. This review…
Abstract This article presents managed honey bee colony loss rates over winter 2019/20 resulting from using the standardised COLOSS questionnaire in 37 countries. Six countries were from outside Europe, including, for the first time in this series of articles, New Zealand. The 30,491 beekeepers outside New Zealand reported 4.5% of colonies with unsolvable queen problems,…
A honey bee colony’s ability to grow and develop is dependent on adequate nutrition. Bees collect pollen from flowers as a source of protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals. The crude protein content of corn pollen is considered low, around 15%; however, bees frequently visit the male flowers of the tassels for pollen. In this study,…
Flumethrin is one of the few acaricides that permit the control of Varroa disease or varroosis in bee colonies. However, flumethrin accumulates in hive products. We previously discovered that sublethal doses of flumethrin induce significant physiological stress in honeybees (Apis mellifera L.), however its potential impacts on the honeybee gut microenvironment remains unknown. To fill…
The gut microbiome plays an important role in bee health and disease. But it can be disrupted by pesticides and in-hive chemicals, putting honey bee health in danger. We used a controlled and fully crossed laboratory experimental design to test the effects of a 10-day period of chronic exposure to field-realistic sublethal concentrations of two…
Abstract Multiple stressors threaten bee health, a major one being pesticides. Bees are simultaneously exposed to multiple pesticides that can cause both lethal and sublethal effects. Risk assessment and most research on bee health, however, focus on lethal individual effects. Here, we performed a systematic literature review and meta-analysis that summarizes and re-interprets the available…