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)…
Most Varroa induced colony losses occur during the autumn or winter season as a consequence of an elevated Varroa infestation level and an insufficient health status of the adult bees. Even with an initial low Varroa infestation in early spring, critical mite and virus infection levels can be reached before winter if colonies continuously rear…
Several negative factors contribute to a decline in the number of insect pollinators. As a novel approach in therapy, we hypothesize that the EM® for bees could potentially have an important therapeutic and immunomodulatory effect on honey bee colonies. The aim of our study was to evaluate its impact on honey bees at the individual…
Abstract This article presents managed honey bee colony loss rates over winter 2018/19 resulting from using the standardised COLOSS questionnaire in 35 countries (31 in Europe). In total, 28,629 beekeepers supplying valid loss data wintered 738,233 colonies, and reported 29,912 (4.1%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.0–4.1%) colonies with unsolvable queen problems, 79,146 (10.7%, 95% CI…
Highlights: Honey bees orally exposed to imidacloprid exhibit reduced metabolism of quercetin. Dietary quercetin reduces the con- centration of imidacloprid absorbed in honey bees. Dietary quercetin does not affect the concentration of tebuconazole or tau-fluvalinate in contact-exposed honey bees. Free download for until 20th September 2020 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653520320439?dgcid=coauthor
In the past centuries, viruses have benefited from globalization to spread across the globe, infecting new host species and populations. A growing number of viruses have been documented in the western honey bee, Apis mellifera. Several of these contribute significantly to honey bee colony losses. This review synthetizes the knowledge of the diversity and distribution…
Numerous studies have recently reported on the discovery of bee viruses in different arthropod species and their possible transmission routes, vastly increasing our understanding of these viruses and their distribution. Here, we review the current literature on the recent advances in understanding the transmission of viruses, both on the presence of bee viruses in Apis…
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) can be infected by many viruses, some of which pose a major threat to their health and well-being. A critical step in the dynamics of a viral infection is its mode of transmission. Here, we compared for the first time the effect of mode of horizontal transmission of Black queen cell virus (BQCV),…
Carl-Johan Junge a beekeeper in Denmark has made a beautiful video about the bees and the beeekeepers dedicated to their conservation on the island of Læsø. First a brief introduction to the bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) and their morphological characters. Honey on Læsø is mostly from heather (Calluna vulgaris). The bees are dark and a…
Abstract Determining varroa mite infestation levels in honey bee colonies and the proper method and time to perform a diagnosis are important for efficient mite control. Performing a powdered sugar shake or counting mites that drop from combs and bees onto a hive bottom board are two reliable methods for sampling varroa mite to evaluate…