There is growing recognition that the gut microbial community regulates a wide variety of important functions in its animal hosts, including host health. However, the complex interactions between gut microbes and environment are still unclear. Honey bees are ecologically and economically important pollinators that host a core gut microbial community that is thought to be constant across populat...

Although overall pollinator populations have declined over the last couple 18 of decades, the honey bee (Apis mellifera) malady, colony collapse disorder (CCD), has 19 caused major concern in the agricultural community. Among honey bee pathogens, RNA 20 viruses are emerging as a serious threat and are suspected as major contributors to CCD. 21 Recent detection of these viral species in bumble b...

Populations of honey bees are declining throughout the world, with US beekeepers losing 30% of their colonies each winter. Though multiple factors are driving these colony losses, it is increasingly clear that viruses play a major role. However, information about the molecular mechanisms mediating antiviral immunity in honey bees is surprisingly limited. Here, we examined the transcriptional an...

Aasrancr: Two African races of the honey bee (Äpis mellifera capansis and A. m. scutellatal have a signilicantly shorter postcapping stage of worker brood than A. rn. carnica. An average within-race heritability of this character is estimated as h2 = 0.8. Reciprocal crosses between the races show that the duration of the postcapping stage also is maternaffy affected (m = 0.23). As the reproduct...

Identifying the floral composition of honey provides a method for investigating the plants that honey bees visit. We compared melissopalynology, where pollen grains retrieved from honey are identified morphologically, with a DNA metabarcoding approach using the rbcL DNA barcode marker and 454-pyrosequencing. We compared nine honeys supplied by beekeepers in the UK. DNA metabarcoding and melisso...

High annual losses of honey bees, as well as range reductions and local extinctions of wild and native pollinator species, are concerning because bees are important plant pollinators [1]. Approximately one-third of the typical Western diet requires bee pollination, and honey bees (Apis mellifera) are the primary pollinators of numerous food crops, including fruits, nuts, vegetables, and oilseed...

Toxicity effects of the neonicotinoid insecticides clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam were tested in the laboratory on different honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) genotypes belonging to the following subspecies: Apis mellifera mellifera L., Apis mellifera ligustica Spinola, and Apis mellifera carnica Pollmann. Oral and indirect contact trials were carried out on adult worker honey bees fo...

Humans have an ancient and intimate relationship with honey bees--from the development of beekeeping in prehistoric times up to the recent sequencing of the honey bee genome. Yet, the intimacies of bee sexuality remained obscure and contentious until relatively recently. Their stepwise unravelling is a tale of advances and misconception that, in part, may have stemmed from an all too humanised ...

The Bees Algorithm is a search procedure inspired by the way honey-bees forage for food. A standard mechanical design problem, the design of a welded beam structure, was used to benchmark the Bees Algorithm against other optimisation techniques. The paper presents the results obtained showing the robust performance of the Bees Algorithm.

Honey is the nectar that is collected from many plants and processed by honey bees (Apis mellifera). This study is a pilot study that observes and evaluates the clinical efficacy of topical application of honey bees in treatment of some common inflammatory, vesiculobullous and ulcerative oral lesions. A total number of 50 patients complaining of different oral lesions were enrolled in this stud...