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Using the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) cell line, AmE-711, to evaluate pesticide toxicity Pesticides have been identified as a leading contributor to poor performance and elevated mortality of honey bee colonies in many parts of the world. Exposure of honey bees to pesticides may occur in and around treated landscapes, but also within the hive environment, where pesticide residues may ac...
Disease-Mitigating Innovations for the Pollination Service Industry: Challenges and Opportunities. Bees are important pollinators of cultivated and wild flowering plants that humans and other organisms utilize for food, fiber, medicine, and shelter. Increases in crop yield and quality due to bee pollination leads to significant human associated gains in income, nutrition, and ecosystem health. Ho...
Social fever or general immune response? Revisiting an example of social immunity in honey bees Honey bees use several strategies to protect themselves and the colony from parasites and pathogens. In addition to individual immunity, social immunity involves the cumulative effort of some individuals to limit the spread of parasites and pathogens to uninfected nestmates. Examples of social imm...
The pathogen profile of a honey bee queen does not reflect that of her workers Throughout a honey bee queen’s lifetime, she is tended by her worker daughters that feed and groom her. Such interactions provide possible horizontal transmission routes for pathogens from the workers to the queen, and as such a queen’s pathogen profile may be representative of the workers within a ...
Social-medication in bees: the line between individual and social regulation We use the term social-medication to describe the deliberate consumption or use of plant compounds by social insects that are detrimental to a pathogen or parasite at the colony level, result in increased inclusive fitness to the colony, and have potential costs either at the individual- or colony-l...
Gamma irradiation inactivates honey bee fungal, microsporidian, and viral pathogens and parasites Managed honey bee (Apis mellifera) populations are currently facing unsustainable losses due to a variety of factors. Colonies are challenged with brood pathogens, such as the fungal agent of chalkbrood disease, the microsporidian gut parasite Nosema sp., and several viruses. These pathogens may be ...