Discrete Time Series Forecasting of Hive Weight, In-Hive Temperature, and Hive Entrance Traffic in Non-Invasive Monitoring of Managed Honey Bee Colonies: Part I.

From June to October, 2022, we recorded the weight, the internal temperature, and the hive entrance video traffic of ten managed honey bee () colonies at a research apiary of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, AZ, USA. The weight and temperature were recorded every five minutes around the clock. The 30 s videos were recorded every five minutes daily from 7:00 to 20:55.

Hive Orientation and Colony Strength Affect Honey Bee Colony Activity during Almond Pollination.

The foraging activity of honey bees used to pollinate almonds was examined in relation to their hive entrance orientation and colony strength. Twenty-four colonies of honey bees, twelve in each group, were situated with their entrances facing east and west cardinal points. Bee out counts were recorded continuously and hive weight data at ∼10 min intervals from 17 February to 15 March 2023.

Cold storage as part of a Varroa management strategy: effects on honey bee colony performance, mite levels and stress biomarkers.

Placing honey bee colonies in cold storage has been proposed as a way to induce a pause in brood production as part of a Varroa mite treatment plan. Here, we exposed colonies to combinations of with or without an October cold storage period and with or without a subsequent miticide application. We then measured the effects of those treatments on colony-level variables (i.

Diversity and transmission of koala retrovirus: a case study in three captive koala populations.

Koala retrovirus is a recently endogenized retrovirus associated with the onset of neoplasia and infectious disease in koalas. There are currently twelve described KoRV subtypes (KoRV-A to I, K-M), most of which were identified through recently implemented deep sequencing methods which reveal an animals' overall KoRV profile. This approach has primarily been carried out on wild koala populations around Australia, with few investigations into the whole-population KoRV profile of captive koala colonies to date.

Field and Cage Studies Show No Effects of Exposure to Flonicamid on Honey Bees at Field-Relevant Concentrations.

The extent to which insecticides harm non-target beneficial insects is controversial. The effects of long-term exposure on honey bees to sublethal concentrations of flonicamid, a pyridinecarboxamide compound used as a systemic insecticide against sucking insects, were examined in a field study and two cage studies. The field study involved the continuous weight, temperature, and CO monitoring of 18 honey bee colonies, 6 of which were exposed over six weeks to 50 ppb flonicamid in sugar syrup, 6 exposed to 250 ppb flonicamid in syrup, and 6 exposed to unadulterated syrup (control).

Integration of Scales and Cameras in Nondisruptive Electronic Beehive Monitoring: On the Within-Day Relationship of Hive Weight and Traffic in Honeybee () Colonies in Langstroth Hives in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

The relationship between beehive weight and traffic is a fundamental open research problem for electronic beehive monitoring and digital apiculture, because weight and traffic affect many aspects of honeybee () colony dynamics. An investigation of this relationship was conducted with a nondisruptive two-sensor (scale and camera) system on the weight and video data collected on six colonies in Langstroth hives at the USDA-ARS Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, USA, from 15 May to 15 August 2021. Three hives had positive and two hives had negative correlations between weight and traffic.

Traces of a neonicotinoid pesticide stimulate different honey bee colony activities, but do not increase colony size or longevity.

How neonicotinoid contamination affects honey bees remains controversial. Studies have yielded contradictory results, and few have examined effects on colony development. Here we report the results of a comprehensive five-year study of the effects of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid on honey bee colonies.

Sublethal concentrations of clothianidin affect honey bee colony growth and hive CO concentration.

The effects of agricultural pesticide exposure upon honey bee colonies is of increasing interest to beekeepers and researchers, and the impact of neonicotinoid pesticides in particular has come under intense scrutiny. To explore potential colony-level effects of a neonicotinoid pesticide at field-relevant concentrations, honey bee colonies were fed 5- and 20-ppb concentrations of clothianidin in sugar syrup while control colonies were fed unadulterated syrup. Two experiments were conducted in successive years at the same site in southern Arizona, and one in the high rainfall environment of Mississippi.

Landscape factors influencing honey bee colony behavior in Southern California commercial apiaries.

Colony brood levels, frames of bees (adult bee mass) and internal hive temperature were monitored for 60 colonies for each of two years as they were moved from agricultural, tree crop and mountain landscapes in southern California to blueberry and almond pollination sites. Hive weight was also continuously monitored for 20 of those hives for 6 weeks for both years, during commercial pollination. Pesticide residues in wax, honey and beebread samples were analyzed by composite apiary samples.

Traces of a Neonicotinoid Induce Precocious Foraging and Reduce Foraging Performance in Honey Bees.

There is increasing worldwide concern about the impacts of pesticide residues on honey bees and bee colony survival, but how sublethal effects of pesticides on bees might cause colony failure remains highly controversial, with field data giving very mixed results. To explore how trace levels of the neonicotinoid pesticide imidacloprid impacted colony foraging performance, we equipped bees with RFID tags that allowed us to track their lifetime flight behavior. One group of bees was exposed to a trace concentration (5 μg/kg, ppb) of imidacloprid in sugar syrup while in the larval stage.

Long-term dynamics of honey bee colonies following exposure to chemical stress.

Pesticide residues have been linked to reduced bee health and increased honey bee colony failure. Most research to date has investigated the role of pesticides on individual honey bees, and it is still unclear how trace levels of pesticides change colony viability and productivity over seasonal time scales. To address this question we exposed standard bee colonies to chemical stressors known to have negative effects on individual bees, and measured the productivity of bee colonies across a whole year in two environments: near Tucson Arizona and Sydney Australia.

Counties not countries: Variation in host specificity among populations of an aphid parasitoid.

Parasitic wasps are among the most species-rich groups on Earth. A major cause of this diversity may be local adaptation to host species. However, little is known about variation in host specificity among populations within parasitoid species.

Exposure to sublethal concentrations of methoxyfenozide disrupts honey bee colony activity and thermoregulation.

Methoxyfenozide is an insect growth regulator (IGR) commonly used in agriculture to simultaneously control pests and preserve beneficial insect populations; however, its impact on honey bees in not fully understood. We conducted field and laboratory experiments to investigate bee health in response to field-relevant concentrations of this pesticide. Significant effects were observed in honey bee colony flight activity and thermoregulation after being exposed over 9 weeks to supplemental protein patty containing methoxyfenozide.

Honey bee colony performance and health are enhanced by apiary proximity to US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands.

Honey bee colony performance and health are intimately linked to the foraging environment. Recent evidence suggests that the US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) has a positive impact on environmental suitability for supporting honey bee apiaries. However, relatively little is known about the influence of habitat conservation efforts on honey bee colony health.

Breakfast Canyon Discovered in Honeybee Hive Weight Curves.

Electronic devices to sense, store, and transmit data are undergoing rapid development, offering an ever-expanding toolbox for inventive minds. In apiculture, both researchers and practitioners have welcomed the opportunity to equip beehives with a variety of sensors to monitor hive weight, temperature, forager traffic and more, resulting in huge amounts of accumulated data. The problem remains how to distil biological meaning out of these data.

The development of honey bee colonies assessed using a new semi-automated brood counting method: CombCount.

Precise, objective data on brood and honey levels in honey bee colonies can be obtained through the analysis of hive frame photographs. However, accurate analysis of all the frame photographs from medium- to large-scale experiments is time-consuming. This limits the number of hives than can be practically included in honeybee studies.

Using within-day hive weight changes to measure environmental effects on honey bee colonies.

Patterns in within-day hive weight data from two independent datasets in Arizona and California were modeled using piecewise regression, and analyzed with respect to honey bee colony behavior and landscape effects. The regression analysis yielded information on the start and finish of a colony's daily activity cycle, hive weight change at night, hive weight loss due to departing foragers and weight gain due to returning foragers. Assumptions about the meaning of the timing and size of the morning weight changes were tested in a third study by delaying the forager departure times from one to three hours using screen entrance gates.

Longitudinal Effects of Supplemental Forage on the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Microbiota and Inter- and Intra-Colony Variability.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) provide vital pollination services for a variety of agricultural crops around the world and are known to host a consistent core bacterial microbiome. This symbiotic microbial community is essential to many facets of bee health, including likely nutrient acquisition, disease prevention and optimal physiological function. Being that the bee microbiome is likely involved in the digestion of nutrients, we either provided or excluded honey bee colonies from supplemental floral forage before being used for almond pollination.

Monitoring Colony-level Effects of Sublethal Pesticide Exposure on Honey Bees.

The effects of sublethal pesticide exposure to honey bee colonies may be significant but difficult to detect in the field using standard visual assessment methods. Here we describe methods to measure the quantities of adult bees, brood, and food resources by weighing hives and hive parts, by photographing frames, and by installing hives on scales and with internal sensors. Data from these periodic evaluations are then combined with running average and daily detrended data on hive weight and internal hive temperature.

Agricultural Landscape and Pesticide Effects on Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Biological Traits.

Sixteen honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies were placed in four different agricultural landscapes to study the effects of agricultural landscape and exposure to pesticides on honey bee health. Colonies were located in three different agricultural areas with varying levels of agricultural intensity (AG areas) and one nonagricultural area (NAG area).

Sublethal Effects of Imidacloprid on Honey Bee Colony Growth and Activity at Three Sites in the U.S.

Imidacloprid is a neonicotinoid pesticide heavily used by the agricultural industry and shown to have negative impacts on honey bees above certain concentrations. We evaluated the effects of different imidacloprid concentrations in sugar syrup using cage and field studies, and across different environments. Honey bee colonies fed sublethal concentrations of imidicloprid (0, 5, 20 and 100 ppb) over 6 weeks in field trials at a desert site (Arizona), a site near intensive agriculture (Arkansas) and a site with little nearby agriculture but abundant natural forage (Mississippi) were monitored with respect to colony metrics, such as adult bee and brood population sizes, as well as pesticide residues.

Variability in Small Hive Beetle (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) Reproduction in Laboratory and Field Experiments.

Experiments were conducted to examine how several key factors affect population growth of the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida Murray (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae). Laboratory experiments were conducted to examine effects of food quantity and temperature on reproduction of cohorts of young A. tumida adults (1:1 sex ratio) housed in experimental arenas.