Aspects of Honey Bee Colonies Losses

A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Biodiversity Loss & Dynamics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2024) | Viewed by 4015

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Maribor, Pivola 10, 2311 Hoče, Slovenia
Interests: honey bee; insect toxicology; cell biology; varroa; queen rearing; bee breeding
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Maribor, Pivola 10, 2311 Hoče, Slovenia
Interests: bees; biomarkers; biomonitoring; ecotoxicology; field exposure; molecular biology; morphophysiology; pesticides; risk assessment; sublethal effets

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Managed honey bees can be exposed to various internal and external factors, including exposure to various pathogens, lack of diversity of food sources, and management problems. Bees in agriculture settings are exposed to a variety of stressors that act in isolation or, more often, in combination. Intensive further study is needed to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms and interactions that reduce individual honey bee or colony vitality. The presenting biology of colony health and the affected mechanisms caused by stress factors and their interactions are important objectives to be presented in this Special Issue of Diversity. Studies will focus on honey bees as individual or social organisms responding to a variety of pathogens causing American and European foulbroods, varroosis, mycosis, and other diseases. Factors such as environment stressors and honey bee colony management, including beekeeping practices as a factor in colonies’ survival, are welcomed for publication. Attention will be also given to the effects of pesticides on bees and their survival.

In this Diversity Special Issue entitled “Aspects of Honey Bee Colonies Losses”, we encourage researchers to present new studies on the nature, mechanisms, and relative importance of the potential factors relating to recent losses in the beekeeping sector. There is still an urgent need for reliable and comparable experimental laboratory and field data on the improvement of honey bee colony survival and mitigating potential colony losses. We would like to encourage researchers to perform and publish new studies on the factors, their synergistic interactions, and mechanisms contributing to managed honey bee colony vitality, health and losses worldwide.

Prof. Dr. Aleš Gregorc
Dr. Caio Eduardo da Costa Domingues
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1554 KiB  
Article
Effects of Clothianidin Pesticide Application on the Strength of Honey Bee Colonies and Stress-Related Genes in the Vicinity of Rice Fields in the Republic of Korea
by Minwoong Son, Jisoo Kim, Dongwon Kim, Chang-Hoon Lee, Peter Njukang Akongte, Daegeun Oh, Yong-Soo Choi and Bo-Sun Park
Diversity 2023, 15(12), 1217; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15121217 - 14 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1392
Abstract
The honey bee, a crucial organism that provides ecological and economic value to humans, is currently facing threats from various environmental factors including pesticides. Numerous studies have been conducted to demonstrate the risks associated with neonicotinoid pesticides, but research on their occurrence in [...] Read more.
The honey bee, a crucial organism that provides ecological and economic value to humans, is currently facing threats from various environmental factors including pesticides. Numerous studies have been conducted to demonstrate the risks associated with neonicotinoid pesticides, but research on their occurrence in actual field conditions has not been identified. Therefore, in this study, we observed changes in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies located near rice cultivation areas as they progressed beyond the rice pesticide application period. Furthermore, we collected honey bees exposed to the clothianidin and analyzed their stress-related gene expression. The results showed that the foraging behavior of honey bee colonies located near rice cultivation areas did not exhibit significant differences between the treatment sites (Cheongyang and Gimje) and the control site (Wanju) during the experimental period. However, it was observed that the expression levels of stress-related genes in honey bees collected from the treatment group were significantly higher than those in the control. Most of the stress-related genes were associated with detoxification processes in response to pesticides. As a result, pesticide treatment in proximity to rice cultivation areas did not cause direct damage to honey bees but had an indirect impact, suggesting the potential for ongoing chronic damage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aspects of Honey Bee Colonies Losses)
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14 pages, 3130 KiB  
Article
Exploring the External Environmental Drivers of Honey Bee Colony Development
by Nuno Capela, Artur Sarmento, Sandra Simões, Sara Lopes, Sílvia Castro, António Alves da Silva, Joana Alves, Yoko L. Dupont, Dirk C. de Graaf and José Paulo Sousa
Diversity 2023, 15(12), 1188; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15121188 - 30 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1912
Abstract
Honey bees play an important role in agricultural landscapes by providing pollination services. Throughout the season, colonies increase their population and collect resources from the available flowering plants. Besides internal mechanisms, such as the amount of brood or the availability of bees to [...] Read more.
Honey bees play an important role in agricultural landscapes by providing pollination services. Throughout the season, colonies increase their population and collect resources from the available flowering plants. Besides internal mechanisms, such as the amount of brood or the availability of bees to perform foraging flights, colonies are also influenced by the climate and the surrounding landscape. Therefore, exposure to different environmental contexts leads to distinct development rates. In this study, we show how colonies develop under three different landscape contexts and explore which external variables (mostly climate and resources availability) influence the colonies’ development. We installed three apiaries in three different landscapes in the Iberian Peninsula, with temporal and spatial variation in climatic conditions and resource availability. The availability of resources and their use, as well as the development of colonies throughout the season, were thoroughly investigated. These data were used to take the first step into creating an ecologically relevant landscape by calculating the number of available resources in the landscape at different points in time, based on plants’ beekeeping interest as well as nectar and production. Furthermore, climatic variables were transformed into the amount of available foraging minutes that bees had to collect resources, and a theoretical threshold of optimal vs. sub-optimal conditions was also explored. Interestingly, the main drivers of colony development (measured by daily weight increase) were not the same in the tested apiaries, evidencing how colonies are indeed intrinsically connected with the surrounding environmental scenario. Therefore, results from field testing are extremely context-dependent and should be interpreted with caution when being extrapolated to other environmental scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aspects of Honey Bee Colonies Losses)
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