The losses of honey bee colonies and declines of other insect pollinators have been associated with negative effects of pesticides. Honey bees as well as other pollinators are nectar and pollen foragers and thus are exposed to an extensive range of phytochemicals. Understanding the synergistic, additive, and antagonistic effects of plant secondary metabolites and pesticides…
Abstract Pesticides and parasites have each been linked to increased mortality in western honey bees (Apis mellifera). Currently, it is uncertain if one makes the other worse; several studies have tested for potential synergistic stressor effects, but results have been mixed. Here, we use a hierarchical meta‐analysis of 63 experiments from 26 studies to gain…
The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating in most of the countries creating a state of international alert. After a year of COVID-19 emergence, while some COVID-19 vaccines are currently being produced and available, new concerns regarding their safety and efficacy are coming up particularly with the emergence of mutated strains of SARS-CoV-2…
Dear Colleagues, Traditionally, honeybee breeding has been focusing on traits of immediate benefit to apiculturists, such as maximizing honey yield or selecting for traits that allow handling colonies with greater ease, for instance, gentleness or low swarming tendency. In particular since the establishment of breeding value estimation, significant genetic progress has been achieved in this…
Ensuring adequate treatments for acaricide efficacy to combat mite infestation is a pre-requisite for healthy honeybees and a good yield of hive products. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effect of the mode of application on efficiency of two acaricides; Vapcozin-20 (amitraz) and Mavrik 2F (fluvalinate) against Varroa mite infesting brood and adult honeybees. Methods: To do so,…
With numerous endemic subspecies representing four of its five evolutionary lineages, Europe holds a large fraction of Apis mellifera genetic diversity. This diversity and the natural distribution range have been altered by anthropogenic factors. The conservation of this natural heritage relies on the availability of accurate tools for subspecies diagnosis. Based on pool-sequence data from…
Nanna Hjort Vidkjær, Inge S. Fomsgaard, and Per Kryger Abstract: The honey bee pollen/nectar diet is rich in bioactive phytochemicals and recent studies have demonstrated the potential of phytochemicals to influence honey bee disease resistance. To unravel the role of dietary phytochemicals in honey bee health it is essential to understand phytochemical uptake, bioavailability, and metabolism but presently…
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Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has infected people in 210 nations and has been declared a pandemic on March 12, 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). In the absence of effective treatment and/or vaccines for COVID-19, natural products of known therapeutic and antiviral activity could offer an inexpensive, effective option for managing the disease. Benefits of…
The decline of insect pollinators threatens global food security. A major potential cause of decline is considered to be the interaction between environmental stressors, particularly between exposure to pesticides and pathogens. To explore pesticide–pathogen interactions in an important pollinator insect, the honey bee, we used two new nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist insecticides (nACHRs), flupyradifurone (FPF)…