Exotic plant invasions threaten ecological communities world-wide. Some species are limited by a lack of suitable pollinators, but the introduction of exotic pollinators can facilitate rapid spread. In Tasmania, where many non-native plants are naturalised, exotic honeybees (Apis mellifera) and bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) have become established. We determined how these species affect the po...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although urban gardens provide opportunities for pollinators in an otherwise inhospitable environment, most garden plants are not native to the recipient biogeographical region and their value to local pollinators is disputed. This study tested the hypothesis that bumblebees foraging in English urban gardens preferentially visited sympatric Palaearctic-range plants over spec...

Bombus terrestris is one of the most commonly used insect models to investigate visually guided behavior and spatial vision in particular. Two fundamental measures of spatial vision are spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity. In this study, we report the threshold of spatial resolution in B. terrestris and characterize the contrast sensitivity function of the bumblebee visual system for a ...

Bumblebee venom allergies, though uncommon among the broad public, pose a significant risk in plant industry and scientific occupation. Since a significant IgE cross-reactivity between bumblebee and honeybee venom has been described in several cases and bumblebee venom for immunotherapy has been available only from a few suppliers, SIT with honeybee venom was frequently used for bumblebee venom...

Bumblebees (i.e. Bombus genus) are major pollinators of flowering wild plants and crops. Although many species are currently in decline, a number of them remain stable or are even expanding. One factor potentially driving changes in bumblebee distribution is the suitability of plant communities. Actually, bees probably have specific nutritional requirements that could shape their floral choices...

We have investigated escape behaviour of workers of two bumblebee species, Bombus terrestris and B. pascuorum, when confined to test tubes plugged with soil and either exposed to sunlight or kept in darkness. In both these situations B. terrestris performed better (i.e. escaped after a shorter time) than B. pascuorum. B. terrestris (but not B. pascuorum) also performed better in darkness than i...

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) productively infected with Deformed wing virus (DWV) through Varroa destructor (V. destructor) during pupal stages develop into adults showing wing and other morphological deformities. Here, we report for the first time the occurrence of bumble bees (Bombus terrestris, Bombus pascuorum) exhibiting wing deformities resembling those seen in clinically DWV-infected hone...