Project Number: 2022-21000-018-35-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 20, 2018
End Date: Jul 19, 2020

Objective:
The objective of the proposed work is to determine whether three different widely used pesticides impact fat body integrity in honey bee nurses and whether this leads to precocious foraging.

Approach:
To test whether Insect Growth Regulators (IGRs) deplete fat body content in honey bees, we will apply IGRs to newly emerged bees topically and orally. In the treated and control bees, several metabolic and general metrics will be measured, including survival, dry weight, and different aspects of fat and carbohydrate metabolism. To test whether IGRs affect honey bee flight performance, newly emerged bees will be treated with IGRs and fitted with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, then returned to the hive. The hive will be fitted with an RFID reader. As the bees leave and return to the hive, the time point (age of bee as they make their trip), number of trips, and duration of their trips will be quantified.