Endothermic heat production is a crucial evolutionary adaptation that is, amongst others, responsible for the great success of honeybees. Endothermy ensures the survival of the colonies in harsh environments and is involved in the maintenance of the brood nest temperature, which is fundamental for the breeding and further development of healthy individuals and thus the foraging and reproduction...

The commercial production and subsequent movement of bumble bees for pollination agricultural field greenhouse crops is a growing industry in North America globally. Concerns have been raised about the impacts pathogen spillover from managed to wild pollinators, including bees. We recommend development program mitigate disease risk bee production, which will turn reduce stressors on pollinators...

The widely accepted idea that bees fuel flight through the oxidation of carbohydrate is based on studies of only a few species. We tested this hypothesis as part of our research program to investigate the size-dependence of flight energetics in Panamanian orchid bees. We succeeded in measuring rates of O(2) consumption and CO(2) production in vivo during hovering flight, as well as maximal acti...

Honey bee colony feeding trials were conducted to determine whether differential effects of carbohydrate feeding (sucrose syrup (SS) vs. high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS) could be measured between colonies fed exclusively on these syrups. In one experiment, there was a significant difference in mean wax production between the treatment groups and a significant interaction between time and trea...

There is a growing body of empirical evidence showing that wild and managed bees are negatively impacted by various pesticides that are applied in agroecosystems around the world. The lethal and sublethal effects of two widely used fungicides and one adjuvant were assessed in cage studies in California on blue orchard bees, Osmia lignaria, and in cage studies in Utah on alfalfa leafcutting bees...

In the US, the cultivated area (hectares) and production (tonnes) of crops that require or benefit from insect pollination (directly dependent crops: apples, almonds, blueberries, cucurbits, etc.) increased from 1992, the first year in this study, through 1999 and continued near those levels through 2009; aggregate yield (tonnes/hectare) remained unchanged. The value of directly dependent crops...

Avenues of water gain and loss in bees are examined here at two levels of organisation: the individual and the colony. Compared with the majority of terrestrial insects, bees have a high water turnover. This is due to their nectar diet and, in larger species, substantial metabolic water production during flight, counteracted by high evaporative and excretory losses. Water fluxes at the colony l...