Aims: In recent years, with the improvement of traffic conditions, alargenumber of Apis mellifera apiaries migrate from all parts of the country to Yunnan for beekeeping every year. This study aims to clarify the impact of stocking density of A. mellifera as an alien bee species on the species,...

Honey bees live in colonies containing tens of thousands of workers that coordinate their activities to produce efficient colony-level behavior. In free-foraging colonies, nest bees are entrained to the forager daily phase of activity even when experiencing conflicting light-dark illumination...

Laboratory experiments are vital to exploring the causes of pollinator loss, but for these experiments to be informative, they should attempt to replicate the hive environment and conserve social interactions. It is unclear how honeybee density and group size affect survival and behaviour in the...

We designed a cage that can maintain adult bees for 21 days with about 90% survival rate, in addition to facilitating the changing of sucrose syrup and beebread, and collection of live and dead bees without disturbing or releasing bees. The consumption rates of bee pollen diet and sucrose syrup for ...

The toxic effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on honeybees is a global concern, whereas little is known about the effect of stereoisomeric pesticides among honeybee social behavior. In this study, we investigated the effects of stereoisomeric dinotefuran on honeybee social behavior. We found that ...

Black drongo, Dicrurus macrocercus is an important insectivorous bird that also feeds on honey bees and is considered as an important natural enemy of Western honey bees (Apis mellifera Linn.) causing a significant reduction in the colony strength and honey yield. The present investigation...

The gut microbiota influences animal neurodevelopment and behaviour but has not previously been documented to affect group-level properties of social organisms. Here, we use honeybees to probe the effect of the gut microbiota on host social behaviour. We found that the microbiota increased the...

Finding a pollen substitute for honey bees that is nutritionally adequate and affordable is a scientific and practical challenge. We attempted a new rational approach and tried to exploit honey bees' natural cannibalistic behavior. We tested processed insect larvae as a food source that is...

Exposure to agrochemical sprays containing pesticides and tank-mix adjuvants has been implicated in post-bloom mortality, particularly of brood, in honey bee colonies brought into California almond orchards for pollination. Although adjuvants are generally considered to be biologically inert, some...

The molecular characterization of complex behaviours is a challenging task as a range of different factors are often involved to produce the observed phenotype. An established approach is to look at the overall levels of expression of brain genes - or 'neurogenomics' - to select the best candidates ...