Living in honey: bacterial and fungal communities in honey of sympatric populations of Apis mellifera and the stingless bee Melipona beecheii, in Yucatan, Mexico.

Bacterial and fungal communities in the honey of sympatric populations of the bee species Apis mellifera and Melipona beecheii were profiled by amplicon sequencing of the 16S gene and the ITS of the ribosomal DNA. Results showed that the structure of the honey microbiota of these two bee species was very different from each other. Both the bacterial and fungal species in A.

Effect of yeast and essential oil-enriched diets on critical determinants of health and immune function in Africanized .

Nutrition is vital for health and immune function in honey bees (). The effect of diets enriched with bee-associated yeasts and essential oils of Mexican oregano () was tested on survival, food intake, accumulated fat body tissue, and gene expression of vitellogenin (), prophenoloxidase () and glucose oxidase () in newly emerged worker bees. The enriched diets were provided to bees under the premise that supplementation with yeasts or essential oils can enhance health variables and the expression of genes related to immune function in worker bees.

Heat stress during development affects immunocompetence in workers, queens and drones of Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) (Hymenoptera: Apidae).

Though social insects generally seem to have a reduced individual immunoresponse compared to solitary species, the impact of heat stress on that response has not been studied. In the honey bee, the effect of heat stress on reproductives (queens and males/drones) may also vary compared to workers, but this is currently unknown. Here, we quantified the activity of an enzyme linked to the immune response in insects and known to be affected by heat stress in solitary species: phenoloxidase (PO), in workers, queens and drones of Africanized honey bees (AHBs) experimentally subjected to elevated temperatures during the pupal stage.

Developmental stability, age at onset of foraging and longevity of Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) under heat stress (Hymenoptera: Apidae).

Beekeeping with the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is important in tropical regions but scant information is available on the possible consequences of global warming for tropical beekeeping. We evaluated the effect of heat stress on developmental stability, the age at onset of foraging (AOF) and longevity in Africanized honey bees (AHBs) in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, one of the main honey producing areas in the Neotropics, where high temperatures occur in spring and summer. To do so, we reared worker AHB pupae under a fluctuating temperature regime, simulating current tropical heatwaves, with a high temperature peak of 40.