Yves Le Conte

Research Director at the I.N.R.A. (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) in charge of programs dealing with behavioral physiological genetical aspects of the honey bee biology and pathology. Head of the INRA Research Unit UR 406 ABEILLES ET ENVIRONNEMENT in Avignon France. Since 1983 his research focuses on the biology and chemical ecology of honey bee colonies. With his team and collaborators they have discovered a few pheromones from the brood and the adult bees which are at the center of social regulations in the honey bee colony. Those are primer and releaser pheromones. The primer effect had been studied at the molecular and physiological level. Varroa destructor is a serious threat of the honey bee in Europe and he is also very much involved in research dealing with host parasite relationships and also applied research to control the mite. Since the recent honey bee losses in Europe his team studies the effects of different pathogens and parasites on bee health and focus on the interactions with pesticides to understand honey bee decline from the molecular and socio-genomic level to colony level. Beekeeper since 12 years old.