Evaluating the Effect of Environmental Chemicals on Honey Bee Development from the Individual to Colony Level

Abstract

The presence of pesticides in the beekeeping environment is one of the most serious problems that impacts the life of a honey bee. Pesticides can be brought back to the beehive after the bees have foraged on flowers that have been sprayed with pesticides. Pesticide contaminated food can be exchanged between workers which then feed larvae and therefore can potentially affect the development of honey bees. Thus, residual pesticides in the environment can become a chronic damaging factor to honey bee populations and gradually lead to colony collapse. In the presented protocol, honey bee feeding methods are described and applied to either an individual honey bee or to a colony. Here, the insect growth regulator (IGR) pyriproxyfen (PPN), which is widely used to control pest insects and is harmful to the development of honey bee larvae and pupae, is used as the pesticide. The presenting procedure can be applied to other potentially harmful chemicals or honeybee pathogens for further studies.

Low-Level Fluvalinate Treatment in the Larval Stage Induces Impaired Olfactory Associative Behavior of Honey Bee Workers in the Field

“…Feeding and recording were performed according to our previous report [ 36 ]. Each treatment included 4 replicates (4 colonies) and 50 cells containing 1-day-old worker larvae in a comb, which were randomly selected and marked.…”

Lethal and Sublethal Effects of Pyriproxyfen on Apis and Non-Apis Bees

“…Four colonies placed in hives of nine frames were used by Chen et al [ 123 ] and Ko et al [ 124 ] for estimating the impact of pyriproxyfen (11% EC) on the larval development. Fifty brood cells containing one-day-old larvae were randomly selected and marked for each treatment that consisted in the total ingestion of 0, 4, 40, 400, and 4000 pg of pyriproxyfen per larva in their diet (0, 0.1, 1, 10, and 100 mg/kg).…”

“…At both treatments, newly emerged adults showed deformed wings. There was an important decrease in the weight of royal jelly per cell at 100 mg/kg [ 123 , 124 ].…”

Food and environmental degradation as causative agents of honey bee colonies decline: Mathematical model approach

“…Causes of C.C.D can be attributed to a large extent on environmental degradation factors which include excessive use of pesticides and insecticides (used to fight against honey bee pests), predators and diseases [14]. Some of these neonicotinoid family and Eutrophication of floral resources associated with anthropogenic, which have been established to have negative impact on honey bees including colony collapse [15,16,17]. Since floral diversity is required to ensure the supply of nectar and pollen to colony [18], bees travel long distance in search of food and in such case, they are exposed to dramatic temperature fluctuations which can cause stress and death [13].…”

“…Since floral diversity is required to ensure the supply of nectar and pollen to colony [18], bees travel long distance in search of food and in such case, they are exposed to dramatic temperature fluctuations which can cause stress and death [13]. Other factors of environmental degradation that contribute to C.C.D includes, radiation, climate change, global warming, geomagnetic disturbance [19,16], air pollution [20], predation by other insects [21] and electromagnetic radiation from the Sun [22].…”