Sugar conditioning combined with nectar nonsugar compounds enhances honey bee pollen foraging in a nectarless diocious crop.

Recently, it has been shown that sugar‑conditioned honey bees can be biased towards a nectarless dioecious crop as kiwifruit. The challenges for an efficient pollination service in this crop species are its nectarless flowers and its short blooming period. It is known that combined non-sugar compounds (NSCs) present in the floral products of different plants, such as caffeine and arginine, enhance olfactory memory retention in honey bees.

Sugar-conditioned honey bees can be biased towards a nectarless dioecious crop.

The targeted pollination strategy has shown positive results in directing honey bees to crop flowers offering nectar along with pollen as reward. Kiwifruit is a functionally dioecious species, which relies on bees to transport pollen from staminate to pistillate nectarless flowers. Following the targeted pollination procedures recently validated, we first developed a mimic odor (KM) based on kiwifruit floral volatiles for which bees showed the highest level of generalization to the natural floral scent, although the response towards pistillate flowers was higher than towards staminate flowers.

Learning of a mimic odor combined with nectar nonsugar compounds enhances honeybee pollination of a commercial crop.

The increasing demand on pollination services leads food industry to consider new strategies for management of pollinators to improve their efficiency in agroecosystems. Recently, it was demonstrated that feeding beehives food scented with an odorant mixture mimicking the floral scent of a crop (sunflower mimic, SM) enhanced foraging activity and improved recruitment to the target inflorescences, which led to higher density of bees on the crop and significantly increased yields. Besides, the oral administration of nonsugar compounds (NSC) naturally found in nectars (caffeine and arginine) improved short and long-term olfactory memory retention in conditioned bees under laboratory conditions.

Managed honeybees and South American bumblebees exhibit complementary foraging patterns in highbush blueberry.

Despite Apis mellifera being the most widely managed pollinator to enhance crop production, they are not the most suitable species for highbush blueberries, which possess restrictive floral morphology and require buzz-pollination. Thus, the South American bumblebee Bombus pauloensis is increasingly managed as an alternative species in this crop alongside honeybees. Herein, we evaluated the foraging patterns of the two species, concerning the potential pollen transfer between two blueberry co-blooming cultivars grown under open high tunnels during two seasons considering different colony densities.

Combined secondary compounds naturally found in nectars enhance honeybee cognition and survival.

The alkaloid caffeine and the amino acid arginine are present as secondary compounds in nectars of some flower species visited by pollinators. Each of these compounds affects honeybee appetitive behaviours by improving foraging activity and learning. While caffeine potentiates responses of mushroom body neurons involved in honeybee learning processes, arginine acts as precursor of nitric oxide, enhancing the protein synthesis involved in memory formation.

Honey bee and native solitary bee foraging behavior in a crop with dimorphic parental lines.

Insect pollination is issential for hybrid seed production systems, among which, introduced and native bees are the primary pollinating agents transferring pollen from male fertile (MF) to male sterile (MS) lines. On a highly dimorphic sunflower (Helianthus annuus) crop, we assessed the foraging behavior of solitary Melissodes bees and honey bees Apis mellifera. We found that Melissodes spp.

Appetitive behavior of the honey bee in response to phenolic compounds naturally found in nectars.

The honey bee is the most frequently used species in pollination services for diverse crops. In onion crops (), however, bees avoid visiting certain varieties, being attracted differently to male sterile (MS) and fertile (OP) lines. These differences might be based on the phenolic profiles of the cultivars' nectars.

Odor Learning and Its Experience-Dependent Modulation in the South American Native Bumblebee (Hymenoptera: Apidae).

Learning about olfactory stimuli is essential in bumblebees' life since it is involved in orientation, recognition of nest sites, foraging efficiency and food yield for the colony as a whole. To evaluate associative learning abilities in bees under controlled environmental conditions, the proboscis extension response (PER) assay is a well-established method used in honey bees, stingless bees and successfully adapted to bumblebees of the genus . However, studies on the learning capacity of (Hymenoptera: Apidae), one of the most abundant native species in South America, are non-existent.

Filling dynamics of the Brindley's glands in the blood-sucking bug Triatoma infestans (Hemiptera: Reduviidae).

The filling dynamics of exocrine defensive glands is an important component of the defensive capacity of an insect in its natural environment. We studied the filling state and reloading rate of the Brindley's glands in the haematophagous Chagas disease vector Triatoma infestans (Hemiptera: Reduviidae). Quantitative analyses of isobutyric acid, the main secretion component, were carried out with glands dissected from adults under different scenarios of development, number of discharging events and feeding conditions.

Dislodgement effect of natural semiochemicals released by disturbed triatomines: a possible alternative monitoring tool.

The quick detection of domestic and peridomestic triatomines in their environments becomes difficult without the use of dislodgement substances that flush them out from their shelters. At present, tetramethrin 0.2% is being widely used in control programs.