Browsing by Subject "Apis mellifera"

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Behavioral defenses of honey bees against Varroa jacobsoni Oud.
(1999) Boecking, Otto; Spivak, Marla
Two behaviors of honey bees, hygienic behavior and grooming, are mechanisms of defense against brood diseases and parasitic mites. Studies have shown that Apis mellifera colonies remove worker brood infested with Varroa jacobsoni mites from the nest (hygienic behavior), and groom the mites off other adult bees, but to a limited extent compared to the original host of V. jacobsoni, A. cerana. Research is reviewed on hygienic and grooming behaviors with respect to their potential as mechanisms of resistance to V. jacobsoni. Studies related to hygienic behavior include the removal of experimentally infested and naturally infested brood, measurements of heritability, the uncapping and recapping of cells containing infested pupae, and the detection of infested brood. Studies on grooming include the process by which a groomer detects and damages a mite found on itself or on another adult bee, how the behavior is quantified, and problems with these methods of quantification. Finally, unresolved questions concerning grooming and the effects of hygienic and non-hygienic behaviors on limiting the population growth of V. jacobsoni are discussed.
Colony-level immunity benefits and behavioral mechanisms of resin collection by honey bees.
(2010-10) Simone, Michael Dominick
The general goal of this thesis is to understand the proximate and ultimate mechanisms of resin collection and use in honey bees, Apis mellifera. While there has been significant research on bee-collected resins with respect to human health and various chemical component analyses, this thesis provides the first review and studies on the direct implications of the role of resin in regard to honey bee health, and thus, pioneers a new area of research. I also provide novel information concerning the stimuli that may be involved in the recruitment of foragers and initiation of resin foraging. Overall my thesis provides the first evidence that resin collection is a form of social immunity in honey bees and may both have direct and indirect effects on individual immunity and colony health. I have also shed new light on the behavioral mechanisms that may be mediating this behavior at both the colony level (self-medication) and individual level (assessment of tactile information). I tested original hypotheses that led to new questions and opportunities for further research that will be conducted by me and others for a long period of time.
Facultative expression of hygienic behaviour of honey bees in relation to disease resistance
(Taylor and Francis, 1993) Spivak, Marla; Gilliam, Martha
Four experiments were conducted to examine factors that influence the expression of hygienic and non-hygienic behaviour in honey bees, Apis mel/itera, and to examine the correlation between this behaviour and resistance to chalkbrood, Ascosphaera apis. Colonies were headed by instrumentally inseminated queens selected on the basis of uncapping and removal behaviour expressed by their progeny. In the first experiment, colony strength was altered by transferring hygienic and nonhygienic colonies from 1O-frame field hives to 2-frame observation hives. This treatment significantly reduced the hygienic response of the hygienic bees but did not affect the response of the non-hygienic bees. In the second experiment, hygienic and non-hygienic bees displayed different responses to freeze-killed and live brood which had been partially or entirely uncapped. Both lines of bees recapped both partially and entirely uncapped live brood, but non-hygienic bees also recapped partially uncapped freeze-killed brood, suggesting that non-hygienic bees either could not detect dead or diseased brood or avoided it by sealing it within a comb cell. The third experiment tested whether the degree of hygienic behaviour could be increased by adding hygienic bees to non-hygienic colonies. Adding 20-30% young hygienic bees to nonhygienic colonies did not increase the degree of hygienic behaviour, but adding young nonhygienic bees to hygienic colonies suppressed the behaviour. The results suggest that although hygienic behavior is genetically determined, its expression depends on colony strength and composition of workers within the colony. In the fourth experiment, the hygienic and non-hygienic colonies were fed with pollen patties containing A. apis spores. The weak correspondence that was observed between removal behaviour and physiological resistance to chalkbrood suggested that few colonies are both highly hygienic and physiologically resistant to chalkbrood. Selection against uncapping and removing diseased brood might occur if this behaviour also promotes the spread of disease through the colony. This possibility is discussed in relation to avoidance behaviour of other social insects toward pathogens.
Field trial of honey bee colonies bred for mechanisms of resistance against Varroa destructor
(2007) Ibrahim, Abdullah; Reuter, Gary S.; Spivak, Marla
We compared colonies selectively bred for both hygienic behavior and Suppression of Mite Reproduction (HYG/SMR) with colonies bred solely for hygienic behavior (HYG) and unselected control colonies. Colonies were evaluated for strength, brood viability, removal of freeze-killed brood, honey production, mite loads on adult bees and within worker brood, and mite reproductive success on worker brood for two years in two locations. By autumn in both years, the HYG/SMR colonies had significantly fewer mites on adult bees and in worker brood compared to the control colonies, and the HYG colonies had intermediate mite populations. Contrary to expectation, there were no differences among the lines in mite reproductive success. Further studies are required to determine if the genes and neural mechanisms that regulate the SMR trait are the same or different from those regulating hygienic behavior.
Honey bee hygienic behavior and defense against Varroa jacobsoni
(Springer, 1996) Spivak, Marla
Hygienic and non-hygienic colonies from ’Starline’ stock of Apis mellifera were tested for their ability to remove pupae infested with Varroa mites. The hygienic and non-hygienic lines were selected and bred on the basis of their removal response to freeze-killed brood. A Jenter Box® was used to test whether they would remove experimentally infested pupae following methods of Boecking and Drescher (1992). In 1994, the hygienic colonies removed significantly more pupae infested with one mite per cell than the non-hygienic colonies. In 1995, there was no significant difference between the hygienic and non-hygienic colonies when one or two mites were introduced per pupa due to variation in response among hygienic colonies. There was no significant difference between the rate of removal of infested pupae from the Jenter Box and from natural wax comb by the hygienic colonies. The number of mites damaged by grooming ranged from 6.0 to 42.3% among all colonies. The reproductive success of the mites not removed from the cells by the bees was low in both hygienic and non-hygienic colonies.
Hygienic behaviors of honey bees in response to brood experimentally pin-killed or infected with Ascosphaera apis
(2010) Palacio, María Alejandra; Rodriguez, Edgardo; Goncalves, Lionel; Bedascarrasbure, Enrique; Spivak, Marla
Hygienic behavior of honeybees involves inspection, uncapping and removal of diseased and dead brood from the colony. The objective of this work was to study the activities involved in hygienic behavior of individually tagged bees from selected hygienic (H) and non-hygienic (NH) colonies in the presence of chalkbrood infected brood (Ascosphaera apis) or pin-killed brood. No significant difference was detected in the age of bees inspecting, uncapping or removing brood in H and NH colonies; the median age was 15 days for all activities. The percentage of bees that performed these activities was significantly higher in H colonies. In NH colonies the bees that performed this behavior were more persistent but bees in H colonies were more efficient in the removal of the chalkbrood mummies. H colonies began uncapping more rapidly in response to the stimulus of dead brood independent of the method used to kill it. H and NH bees took the same amount of time to remove the mummies once they initiated the uncapping process but NH colonies took longer to remove pin-killed brood. These findings confirm previous behavioral studies on the activities of hygienic and non-hygienic bees toward freeze-killed brood, but this is the first time the entire process from inspection to removal was focused on individual cells containing actual diseased brood.
Improving the health and survivorship of commercial honey bee colonies
(2018-12) Lee, Kathleen
The health of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) is essential for the health of U.S. agricultural and natural ecosystems. In particular, the sustainability of commercial beekeeper operations (beekeepers that manage >500 colonies) is of critical importance to agriculture as these operations manage most of colonies in the U.S. and fulfill the majority of crop pollination contracts. Identifying risk factors and best management practices for these beekeepers can improve colony health and survivorship, decreasing total U.S. colony mortality. My dissertation uses epidemiological methods to identify and quantify risk factors in real-world commercial beekeeping operations in four chapters. Chapter 1 reviews recent publications that use epidemiological methods to study honey bee health. The reviewed research efforts used surveillance methods to quantify colony mortality, describe disease prevalence and incidence, and identify risk factors. Surveillance can be used to highlight potential areas of further research and measure improvements in honey bee health. Chapter 2 quantifies the problem of colony mortality by reporting the results of the eighth year (2013 – 2014) of the Bee Informed Partnership’s annual colony loss survey. The survey reports on summer, winter, and annual colony mortality of 7,425 voluntary respondents representing approximately 19% of U.S. colonies, and includes different beekeeper operation sizes, regions, and migratory statuses. Although only 1.4% of respondents were commercial beekeepers, they managed 89% of the colonies represented in this survey. Similar to previous surveys, commercial beekeepers had lower winter and annual loss than beekeepers that managed fewer colonies, with summer losses not different among beekeepers grouped by operation size. Contrary to public perception, migratory operations did not have higher losses than those operations that did not move colonies. Commercial beekeepers identified Varroa destructor mites and queen failure as the top two contributors to colony mortality. Chapter 3 is an observational study that identifies risk factors using real-world data from commercial beekeeper operations collected by the Bee Informed Partnership’s Tech-Transfer Team. Colony inspection metrics that predicted colony health or survival included an estimation of the adult bee population, loads and signs of the parasitic mite V. destructor, spore loads of the microsporidian Nosema spp., and the continuous presence of a queen bee. Overall, this study provides a way to make management decisions based on the likelihood of a colony health outcome. Chapter 4 determines if a colony phenotype can be attributed to a poor-quality queen. The failure of the queen bee was identified by the surveys and the Tech-Transfer Team data as a major contributor to colony mortality. One sign commonly attributed to the failure of a queen is a poor brood pattern – i.e. the continuity of cells on a comb containing sealed pupae. This study had two objectives: 1) determine if a poor brood pattern was reliably associated with other measures of queen quality (2016 and 2017); and 2) determine if brood pattern was influenced more by factors associated with the colony environment or by the queens’ egg-laying capacity (2017). Although brood pattern was not associated with measures of queen quality, brood patterns improved after a queen with a poor brood pattern was introduced into a colony with a good brood pattern, suggesting that colony environment had a larger impact on brood pattern than the queens’ egg laying capacity. The results imply that brood pattern is not a reliable indicator of queen quality and factors other than the queen can influence brood pattern. Overall, these studies contribute to the understanding of commercial beekeeping and can inform management practices to increase colony health and survivorship.
Land use in the Northern Great Plains region of the U.S. influences the survival and productivity of honey bee colonies
(2016) Smart, Matthew D.; Pettis, Jeff S.; Euliss, Ned; Spivak, Marla S.
The Northern Great Plains region of the US annually hosts a large portion of commercially managed U.S. honey bee colonies each summer. Changing land use patterns over the last several decades have contributed to declines in the availability of bee forage across the region, and the future sustainability of the region to support honey bee colonies is unclear. We examined the influence of varying land use on the survivorship and productivity of honey bee colonies located in six apiaries within the Northern Great Plains state of North Dakota, an area of intensive agriculture and high density of beekeeping operations. Land use surrounding the apiaries was quantified over three years, 2010–2012, and survival and productivity of honey bee colonies were determined in response to the amount of bee forage land within a 3.2-km radius of each apiary. The area of uncultivated forage land (including pasture, USDA conservation program fields, fallow land, flowering woody plants, grassland, hay land, and roadside ditches) exerted a positive impact on annual apiary survival and honey production. Taxonomic diversity of bee-collected pollen and pesticide residues contained therein varied seasonally among apiaries, but overall were not correlated to large-scale land use patterns or survival and honey production. The predominant flowering plants utilized by honey bee colonies for pollen were volunteer species present in unmanaged (for honey bees), and often ephemeral, lands; thus placing honey bee colonies in a precarious situation for acquiring forage and nutrients over the entire growing season. We discuss the implications for land management, conservation, and beekeeper site selection in the Northern Great Plains to adequately support honey bee colonies and insure long term security for pollinator-dependent crops across the entire country.
Origin, composition, and role of antimicrobial plant resins collected by honey bees, Apis mellifera
(2014-05) Wilson, Michael Bradley
The use of plant resins in nest building by honey bees, Apis mellifera, is an oft ignored, but critical behavior to bee health. Termed `propolis' by beekeepers, deposited resins in the nest have many positive physiological effects on the colony. Honey bees are feral and abundantly managed in many regions of the United States, from the Sonoran Desert to icy Minnesota, yet a diversity of very different resinous plants exist in every environment they call home. We know very little about what resinous plants bees utilize in these different regions, or what benefits bees might derive from specific plants. It is thought that the antimicrobial properties inherent in resins, which are complex mixtures of phenolic and isoprenoid compounds, are important drivers of their derived benefits to bees. The research herein focuses on creating better methods to track resin forager behavior, and then using those methods to discover the botanical sources of bee-foraged resins, while also exploring how resins from different plants directly affect the growth of two bee pathogens, the gram-positive bacteria Paenibacillus larvae and the fungus Ascophaera apis. I found that individual resin foragers can be chemically tracked to their resinous plant targets using metabolomic methods that hold great advantages over traditional chemical analyses, and that there is much diversity in the ability of resins from different Populus spp. to inhibit the in vitro growth of P. larvae and A. apis. I go on to further explore the benefits of different resins and find that propolis from Fallon, NV was particularly active against P. larvae and A. apis out of samples from 12 different regions in the U.S. Finally, I used bioassay-guided fractionation against P. larvae to isolated several flavanone-3-alkyl esters from NV propolis that displayed very high activity (IC50 = 17 µM to 68 µM) against P. larvae and A. apis. Re-examination of data from my previous studies indicated that these compounds were strong contributors to overall anti-P. larvae activity in regional propolis samples, and that Populus spp. are likely the botanical sources of these compounds.
Performance of hygienic honey bee colonies in a commercial apiary
(1998) Spivak, Marla; Reuter, Gary S.
Colonies with naturally mated queens from a hygienic line of Italian honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica) were compared to colonies from a commercial line of Italian bees not selected for hygienic behavior. The following characteristics were compared: rate of removal of freeze-killed brood; amount of chalkbrood; incidence of American foulbrood; honey production; and the number of mites, Varroa jacobsoni, on adult bees. The hygienic colonies removed significantly more freeze-killed brood than the commercial colonies, had significantly less chalkbrood, had no American foulbrood, and produced significantly more honey than the commercial colonies. Estimates of the number of Varroa mites on adult bees indicated that the hygienic colonies had fewer mites than the commercial colonies in three of four apiaries. In previous studies on the relation between hygienic behavior and resistance to diseases and mites, the test colonies contained instrumentally inseminated queens. This is the first study to evaluate hygienic stock in large field colonies with naturally mated queens.
Propolis and bee health: the natural history and significance of resin use by honey bees
(2010) Simone-Finstrom, Michael; Spivak, Marla
Social immunity, which describes how individual behaviors of group members effectively reduce disease and parasite transmission at the colony level, is an emerging field in social insect biology. An understudied, but significant behavioral disease resistance mechanism in honey bees is their collection and use of plant resins. Honey bees harvest resins with antimicrobial properties from various plant species and bring them back to the colony where they are then mixed with varying amounts of wax and utilized as propolis. Propolis is an apicultural term for the resins when used by bees within a hive. While numerous studies have investigated the chemical components of propolis that could be used to treat human diseases, there is a lack of information on the importance of propolis in regards to bee health. This review serves to provide a compilation of recent research concerning the behavior of bees in relation to resins and propolis, focusing more on the bees themselves and the potential evolutionary benefits of resin collection. Future research goals are also established in order to create a new focus within the literature on the natural history of resin use among the social insects and role that propolis plays in disease resistance.
Propolis counteracts some threats to honey bee health
(MDPI, 2017) Simone-Finstrom, Michael; Borba, Renata S.; Wilson, Michael; Spivak, Marla
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are constantly dealing with threats from pathogens, pests, pesticides and poor nutrition. It is critically important to understand how honey bees’ natural immune responses (individual immunity) and collective behavioral defenses (social immunity) can improve bee health and productivity. One form of social immunity in honey bee colonies is the collection of antimicrobial plant resins and their use in the nest architecture as propolis. We review research on the constitutive benefits of propolis on the honey bee immune system, and its known therapeutic, colony-level effects against the pathogens Paenibacillus larvae and Ascosphaera apis. We also review the limited research on the effects of propolis against other pathogens, parasites and pests (Nosema, viruses, Varroa destructor, and hive beetles) and how propolis may enhance bee products such as royal jelly and honey. Although propolis may be a source of pesticide contamination, it also has the potential to be a detoxifying agent or primer of detoxification pathways, as well as increasing bee longevity via antioxidant-related pathways. Throughout this paper, we discuss opportunities for future research goals and present ways in which the beekeeping community can promote propolis use in standard colonies, as one way to improve and maintain colony health and resiliency.
The relationship between hygienic behavior and suppression of mite reproduction as honey bee (Apis mellifera) mechanisms of resistance to Varroa destructor
(2006) Ibrahim, Abdullah; Spivak, Marla
We compared the mechanisms of resistance to Varroa destructor displayed by bees bred for Suppression of Mite Reproduction (SMR) and hygienic behavior (HYG). Mites from SMR and HYG source colonies were introduced into recently sealed SMR and HYG worker brood, and the infested pupae were placed either into recipient colonies or into an incubator. SMR colonies removed significantly more miteinfested pupae than the HYG colonies. The reproductive success (fertility and number of viable female offspring) of mites from both sources on pupae not removed by bees was significantly lower in SMR colonies. Within the incubator, the reproductive success of mites was also lower on SMR worker pupae, and lowest when mites from SMR colonies were introduced on SMR brood. Our findings indicated that bees bred for SMR express hygienic behavior; adult bees selectively remove pupae infested with mites. In addition, there is an effect of SMR pupae that reduces mite reproductive success that requires further investigation.
Resistance to American foulbrood disease by honey bee colonies Apis mellifera bred for hygienic behavior
(2001) Spivak, Marla; Reuter, Gary S.
Honey bee colonies, selected for hygienic behavior on the basis of a freeze-killed brood assay, demonstrated resistance to American foulbrood disease. Over two summers in 1998 and 1999, 18 hygienic and 18 non-hygienic colonies containing instrumentally inseminated queens were challenged with comb sections containing spores of the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae subsp. larvae that causes the disease. The strain of bacterium was demonstrated to be resistant to oxytetracycline antibiotic. Seven (39%) hygienic colonies developed clinical symptoms of the disease but five of these recovered (had no visible symptoms) leaving two colonies (11%) with clinical symptoms. In contrast, 100% of the non-hygienic colonies that were challenged developed clinical symptoms, and only one recovered. All non-hygienic colonies had symptoms of naturally occurring chalkbrood disease (Ascosphaera apis) throughout both summers. In contrast 33% of the hygienic colonies developed clinical symptoms of chalkbrood after they were challenged with American foulbrood, but all recovered. The diseased non-hygienic colonies produced significantly less honey than the hygienic colonies.
Seasonal benefits of a natural propolis envelope to honey bee immunity and colony health
(Company of Biologists, 2015) Borba, Renata S.; Klyczek, Karen K.; Mogen, Kim L.; Spivak, Marla
Honey bees, as social insects, rely on collective behavioral defenses that produce a colony-level immune phenotype, or social immunity, which in turn impacts the immune response of individuals. One behavioral defense is the collection and deposition of antimicrobial plant resins, or propolis, in the nest. We tested the effect of a naturally constructed propolis envelope within standard beekeeping equipment on the pathogen and parasite load of large field colonies, and on immune system activity, virus and storage protein levels of individual bees over the course of a year. The main effect of the propolis envelope was a decreased and more uniform baseline expression of immune genes in bees during summer and autumn months each year, compared with the immune activity in bees with no propolis envelope in the colony. The most important function of the propolis envelope may be to modulate costly immune system activity. As no differences were found in levels of bacteria, pathogens and parasites between the treatment groups, the propolis envelope may act directly on the immune system, reducing the bees’ need to activate the physiologically costly production of humoral immune responses. Colonies with a natural propolis envelope had increased colony strength and vitellogenin levels after surviving the winter in one of the two years of the study, despite the fact that the biological activity of the propolis diminished over the winter. A natural propolis envelope acts as an important antimicrobial layer enshrouding the colony, benefiting individual immunity and ultimately colony health.
Timing of Mating Flights of Neotropical African and European Honey Bee Queens and Drones (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Eastern Venezuela
(University of Kansas Natural History Museum, 1999) Otis, Gard W.; Taylor, Orley R., Jr.; Spivak, Marla; Winston, Mark L.; Katz, Susan J.; Kukuk, Penelope F.
Mating flight characteristics of reproductives of neotropica lAfrican and European honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) were studied in eastern Venezuela. For queens, mean exit times of all flights and midpoints of mating flights differed significantly between the subspecies, with the midpoints of mating flights by European queens occurring an average of 47 min earlier in the afternoon. Queens of the two subspecies did not differ in other aspects of their orientation and mating flights. Flights of European drones also occurred significantly earlier than those of neotropical African drones. Mating flights of queens and drones of the same subspecies were approximately synchronous. These results are sufficient to explain the weak positive assortative mating that has been reported previously.

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