Consumers often believe that “natural food” is harmless, however naturally occurring toxins in food represent a health risk to humans. Honey as a natural, nutritious sweetener, is one of the most commonly consumed foods throughout the world. However, food safety concerns for honey arise when honeybees collect nectar from poisonous plants such as Rhododendron sp., Coriaria arborea, and Tripterygium wilfordii Hook…
Bee venom (BV) is a typical toxin secreted by stingers of honeybee workers. BV and BV therapy have long been attractive to different cultures, with extensive studies during recent decades. Nowadays, BV is applied to combat several skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis, acne vulgaris, alopecia, vitiligo, and psoriasis. BV is used extensively in topical…
Abstract A diverse supply of pollen is an important factor for honey bee health, but information about the pollen diversity available to colonies at the landscape scale is largely missing. In this COLOSS study, beekeeper citizen scientists sampled and analyzed the diversity of pollen collected by honey bee colonies. As a simple measure of diversity,…
The varroa mite (Varroa destructor), a complex ectoparasite with a very distinctive biology is considered a key pest affecting beekeeping and honey bee health worldwide. Several control strategies using synthetic and organic acaricides have been developed to deal with this invasive species in Europe, having also side effects on honey bee health. At the same…
VarroMed® is a soft acaricide registered for honey bees on the European Union market since 2017 for Varroa control. Researchers involved were partners of different countries of the Varroa control task force of the COLOSS Association. Our goal was to evaluate performances (acaricide efficacy and toxic effects on honey bees) of VarroMed® in different climatic…
Agricultural and apicultural practices expose honeybees to a range of pesticides that have the potential to negatively affect their physiology, neurobiology, and behavior. Accumulating evidence suggests that these effects extend to the honeybee gut microbiome, which serves important functions for honeybee health. Here we test the potential effects of the pesticides thiacloprid, acetamiprid, and oxalic…
Plant reproduction in red clover requires cross-fertilization via insect pollination. However, the influences of visitation rate and timing on maximizing ovule utilization are yet to be determined. We aimed to study the influences of visitation rate, flowering stage, and self-incompatibility on reproductive success. We applied hand and honey bee pollination in the study of eight…
A Bee World article on the use of Citizen Scientist on varroa research. Citizen Science is the involvement of volunteers in science and CSI Varroa project is an initiative of COLOSS members, started at the end of 2018, aiming to gain more knowledge about varroa infestation thresholds above which beekeepers start observing economic damages, and…
As part of the MUST‐B project, a research project on field data collection for honey bee colony model evaluation was carried out in 2018‐2020. In a preparatory phase (2018), methods for monitoring of honey bee colonies were tested, field operators trained, and experimental colonies established. The main field experiment was conducted in 2019‐2020, during which…
In red clover seed production, low seed yield is limiting the commercial exploitation of tetraploid red clover. To explore if pollination is the limiting factor for the seed yield in tetraploid red clover, we investigated pollinator behaviour and plant reproductive success in diploid (2x) cultivar ‘Rajah’ and tetraploid (4x) cultivar ‘Amos’ using honey bee and…