Honey bees collect nectar and pollen to fulfill their nutritional demands. In particular, can influence longevity, the development of hypopharyngeal glands, immune-competence bees. Pollen also mitigate deleterious effects caused by parasitic mite Varroa destructor related deformed wing virus (DWV) infections. It has been shown that V. accelerates physiological behavioral maturation honey influe...

The Asian yellow-legged hornet ( Vespa velutina ) has been invading Italy since 2013, and it was subjected to management programs counter its spread raise awareness about impacts. We administered a questionnaire sample of 358 beekeepers in Italy, asking them their sources information on V. perception potential impacts severity, compared other threats beekeeping. also explored Internet searching...

We previously characterized and quantified the influence of land use on survival and productivity of colonies positioned in six apiaries and found that colonies in apiaries surrounded by more land in uncultivated forage experienced greater annual survival, and generally more honey production. Here, detailed metrics of honey bee health were assessed over three years in colonies positioned in the...

BACKGROUND Recent elevated winter loss of honey bee colonies is a major concern. The presence of the mite Varroa destructor in colonies places an important pressure on bee health. V. destructor shortens the lifespan of individual bees, while long lifespan during winter is a primary requirement to survive until the next spring. We investigated in two subsequent years the effects of different lev...

The role of deformed wing virus in the initial collapse of varroa infested honey bee colonies in the UK Stephen J Martin , Brenda V Ball and Norman L Carreck School of Environment and Life Sciences, The University of Salford, Greater Manchester, M5 4WT, UK. AgroEcology Department, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 2JQ, UK. Present address: 104, Lower Luton Road, Wheathampstead,...

The major environmental determinants of honeybee caste development come from larval nutrients: royal jelly stimulates the differentiation of larvae into queens, whereas beebread leads to worker bee fate. However, these determinants are not fully characterized. Here we report that plant RNAs, particularly miRNAs, which are more enriched in beebread than in royal jelly, delay development and decr...