Poor Air Quality Is Linked to Stress in Honeybees and Can Be Compounded by the Presence of Disease.

Climate change-related extreme weather events have manifested in the western United States as warmer and drier conditions with an increased risk of wildfires. Honeybees, essential for crop pollination in California, are at the center of these extreme weather events. We associated the maximum daily temperature and air quality index values with the performance of colonies placed in wildfire-prone areas and determined the impact of these abiotic stressors on gene expression and histopathology.

A practical approach to the sampling, fixation, softening, and sectioning of whole honey bees for histologic evaluation.

The Western honey bee () is economically important as the primary managed pollinator of many agricultural crops and for the production of various hive-related commodities. Honey bees are not classically or thoroughly covered in veterinary pathology training programs. Given their unique anatomic and biological differences from the other species more traditionally evaluated by veterinary pathologists, establishing routine and consistent methods for processing samples for histology ensures accurate diagnostic and research conclusions.

Dietary phytochemicals alter hypopharyngeal gland size in honey bee ( L.) workers.

Honey bees are the most efficient pollinators of several important fruits, nuts and vegetables and are indispensable for the profitable production of these crops. Health and performance of honey bee colonies have been declining for decades due to a combination of factors including poor nutrition, agrochemicals, pests and diseases. Bees depend on a diversity of plants for nutrition as pollen is the predominant protein and lipid source, and nectar, the source of carbohydrates for larval development.

Floral Microbes Suppress Growth of with Minimal Effects on Honey Bee Feeding.

Management of , the causal agent of brown rot blossom blight in almond (), relies heavily on the use of chemical fungicides during bloom. However, chemical fungicides can have nontarget effects on beneficial arthropods, including pollinators, and select for resistance in the pathogen of concern. Almond yield is heavily reliant on successful pollination by healthy honey bees (); thus, identifying sustainable, effective, and pollinator-friendly control methods for blossom blight during bloom is desirable.

Injection of seminal fluid into the hemocoel of honey bee queens (Apis mellifera) can stimulate post-mating changes.

Honey bee queens undergo dramatic behavioral (e.g., reduced sexual receptivity), physiological (e.

Proceedings of the 2019 American Bee Research Conference.

The 2019 American Bee Research Conference (ABRC) was held January 10-12, 2019 in conjunction with the annual convention of the American Honey Producers Association in Tempe, AZ. Over the three-day conference, a total of 45 oral presentations and 13 poster presentations were given, representing work done from over 27 institutions and 34 different research groups from throughout the United States and Canada. This proceedings contains and overview of the conference and the submitted abstracts for presentations given at the 2018 American Bee Research Conference.

Putative Drone Copulation Factors Regulating Honey Bee () Queen Reproduction and Health: A Review.

Honey bees are major pollinators of agricultural and non-agricultural landscapes. In recent years, honey bee colonies have exhibited high annual losses and commercial beekeepers frequently report poor queen quality and queen failure as the primary causes. Honey bee colonies are highly vulnerable to compromised queen fertility, as each hive is headed by one reproductive queen.

Unity in defence: honeybee workers exhibit conserved molecular responses to diverse pathogens.

Background: Organisms typically face infection by diverse pathogens, and hosts are thought to have developed specific responses to each type of pathogen they encounter. The advent of transcriptomics now makes it possible to test this hypothesis and compare host gene expression responses to multiple pathogens at a genome-wide scale. Here, we performed a meta-analysis of multiple published and new transcriptomes using a newly developed bioinformatics approach that filters genes based on their expression profile across datasets.

Improving the future of honey bee breeding programs by employing recent scientific advances.

A recent abundance of studies investigating causes of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony losses has led to enhanced recommendations in management practices with particular emphasis on breeding for resistant bee stocks. Here we review the latest advances in research which could improve the future of breeding programs. We discuss diversity in colonies particularly in breeding programs, giving special emphasis to recent improvement in cryopreservation of honey bee germplasm.

Genome-wide analysis of signatures of selection in populations of African honey bees (Apis mellifera) using new web-based tools.

Background: With the development of inexpensive, high-throughput sequencing technologies, it has become feasible to examine questions related to population genetics and molecular evolution of non-model species in their ecological contexts on a genome-wide scale. Here, we employed a newly developed suite of integrated, web-based programs to examine population dynamics and signatures of selection across the genome using several well-established tests, including F ST, pN/pS, and McDonald-Kreitman. We applied these techniques to study populations of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in East Africa.

Parallel epigenomic and transcriptomic responses to viral infection in honey bees (Apis mellifera).

Populations of honey bees are declining throughout the world, with US beekeepers losing 30% of their colonies each winter. Though multiple factors are driving these colony losses, it is increasingly clear that viruses play a major role. However, information about the molecular mechanisms mediating antiviral immunity in honey bees is surprisingly limited.

Genomic analysis of the interactions between social environment and social communication systems in honey bees (Apis mellifera).

Social context is often a primary regulator of social behavior, but genes that affect or are affected by social context have rarely been investigated. In social insects, caste specific pheromones are key modulators of social behavior, e.g.

Chemical profiles of two pheromone glands are differentially regulated by distinct mating factors in honey bee queens (Apis mellifera L.).

Pheromones mediate social interactions among individuals in a wide variety of species, from yeast to mammals. In social insects such as honey bees, pheromone communication systems can be extraordinarily complex and serve to coordinate behaviors among many individuals. One of the primary mediators of social behavior and organization in honey bee colonies is queen pheromone, which is produced by multiple glands.

Effects of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queen insemination volume on worker behavior and physiology.

Honey bee colonies consist of tens of thousands of workers and a single reproductive queen that produces a pheromone blend which maintains colony organization. Previous studies indicated that the insemination quantity and volume alter queen mandibular pheromone profiles. In our 11-month long field study we show that workers are more attracted to high-volume versus low-volume inseminated queens, however, there were no significant differences between treatments in the number of queen cells built by workers in preparation for supersedure.

Effects of the insect growth regulator, methoprene, on Onthophagus taurus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae).

A bioassay was conducted to determine the impact of methoprene, an insect growth regulator (IGR), on fecundity, larval survival, and size of progeny for Onthophagus taurus Schreber. Adult O. taurus dung beetles were offered methoprene-treated manure in three to five replications each at concentrations of 0.

Experimental evaluation of Musca domestica (Diptera: Muscidae) as a vector of Newcastle disease virus.

House flies, Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae), were examined for their ability to harbor and transmit Newcastle disease virus (family Paramyxoviridae, genus Avulavirus, NDV) by using a mesogenic NDV strain. Laboratory-reared flies were experimentally exposed to NDV (Roakin strain) by allowing flies to imbibe an inoculum consisting of chicken embryo-propagated virus.