The life of the bee /

Maeterlinck, Maurice; Sutro, Alfred

doi:10.5962/bhl.title.56556

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The incorporation of pathogen fragments into royal jelly suggests that trans-generational immune priming may operate at the colony level in honey bees. Unlike females from solitary species, honey bee queens do not normally venture outside their nest (Maeterlinck, 1901), nor do they ingest food collected from their environment (Haydak, 1970), so they have fewer opportunities to accumulate immune elicitors from pathogens that currently threaten the colony. Pathogen fragments in royal jelly may help queens inoculate their offspring against a wider array of immune elicitors, and hence protect them from pathogens they are likely to encounter as adults.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social immunity in honey bees: royal jelly as a vehicle in transferring bacterial pathogen fragments between nestmates

Harwood

Salmela

Freitak

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Social immunity is a suite of behavioral and physiological traits that allow colony members to protect one another from pathogens and includes the oral transfer of immunological compounds between nestmates. In honey bees, royal jelly is a glandular secretion produced by a subset of workers that is fed to the queen and young larvae, and which contains many antimicrobial compounds. A related form of social immunity, transgenerational immune priming (TGIP), allows queens to transfer pathogen fragments into their developing eggs where they are recognized by the embryo's immune system and induce higher pathogen-resistance in the new offspring. These pathogen fragments are transported by vitellogenin (Vg), an egg-yolk precursor protein that is also used by nurses to synthesize royal jelly. Therefore, royal jelly may serve as a vehicle to transport pathogen fragments from workers to other nestmates. To investigate this, we recently showed that ingested bacteria are transported to nurses’ jelly-producing glands, and here, we show that pathogen fragments are incorporated into the royal jelly. Moreover, we show that consuming pathogen cells induces higher levels an antimicrobial peptide found in royal jelly, defensin-1.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social immunity in honey bees: royal jelly as a vehicle in transferring bacterial pathogen fragments between nestmates

Harwood

Salmela

Freitak

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Anthropomorphic terminology was not considered misleading or dangerous because Darwin's gradualism guided the comparative approach in behavioral studies as in comparative morphology. Reading this literature gives the strong impression that the authors, such as Romanes (1883), Forel (1910), Buttel-Reepen (1900), and even Maeterlinck (1901) with his romantic style in praise of the honeybee, did not mean mental operations of a human kind when they used terms like intelligence or mental power, but rather species-specific forms of such operations, although all of these authors kept their meaning vague.…”

Section: Are Bees Intelligent and What Is Insect Intelligence?mentioning

confidence: 99%

A short history of studies on intelligence and brain in honeybees

Menzel¹

2020

Apidologie

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Reflections about the historical roots of our current scientific endeavors are useful from time to time as they help us to acknowledge the ideas, concepts, methodological approaches, and idiosyncrasies of the researchers that paved the ground we stand on right now. The 50-year anniversary of Apidologie offers the opportunity to refresh our knowledge about the history of bee research. I take the liberty of putting the founding year of Apidologie in the middle of the period I cover here. The nascent period of behavioral biology around the late 19th to the early twentieth century was intimately connected with a loss of concepts related to the mental functions of the brain, concepts that were rooted in Darwin’s theory of gradualism in the living world including cognition in animals. This loss was celebrated both in ethology and behaviorism as the gateway to scientific impartiality. Using this apparently strict scientific approach, impressive discoveries were made by observing and strictly quantifying the behavior of bees. The first forays into the brain, however, uncovered a richness of structure and function that reached far beyond stereotypical input/output connections and opened the way to compensating the conceptual restrictions imposed on us by traditional ethology. Honeybee research provides us with a particularly exciting story in this context. The cognitive turn in behavioral biology is intimately connected to the increasing knowledge of how the brain works, also in honeybee research. What has been achieved so far is just the beginning, but it gives us a glimpse of a promising future. Teamwork between neuroscientists and behavioral biologists is needed to elucidate brain functions such as the expectation of future outcomes and intentionality as an entry to animal intelligence reflecting the flexibility and adaptability in behavior also seen in honeybees.

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“…Maeterlinck made an interesting point, relevant for all mankind: "If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live" (1). Bees are efficient and reliable pollinators; they are methodical collectors of nectar and pollen, do not destroy the plant, and maintain the biodiversity and productivity of both natural and agricultural ecosystems (2).…”

Section: Back In 1901 In His Book the Life Of The Bee Mauricementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban honey - the aspects of its safety

Jovetić¹,

Redžepović²,

Nedić

et al. 2018

Archives of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology

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To contribute to the development of urban beekeeping, we designed this study to obtain more information about the contamination of urban bee products with toxic metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and pesticides. The samples of honey (N=23), pollen (N=13), and floral nectar (N=6) were collected from the experimental stationary apiary of the Belgrade University Faculty of Agriculture located in centre of Zemun (a municipality of the Belgrade metropolitan area) in 2015 and 2016. Metals (Pb, Cd, As, Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, Ni, Cr, and Hg) were determined with inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICP-QMS). Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were analysed with high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD). Pesticides were analysed with gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The honey samples were generally within the European and Serbian regulatory limits. The levels of all the 123 analysed pesticides were below the limit of quantification (LOQ). Regarding PAH levels in honey, the highest content was found for naphthalene. The elevated levels of Hg and Cr and of PAHs in the pollen samples indicated air pollution. Pesticide residues in pollen, however, were below the LOQ. In nectar, metal levels were relatively similar to those in honey. Our results suggest that the investigated urban honey meets the regulatory requirements for metals, PAHs, and pesticides and is therefore safe for consumption.

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The life of the bee /

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Social immunity in honey bees: royal jelly as a vehicle in transferring bacterial pathogen fragments between nestmates

Social immunity in honey bees: royal jelly as a vehicle in transferring bacterial pathogen fragments between nestmates

A short history of studies on intelligence and brain in honeybees

Urban honey - the aspects of its safety

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