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opencc-zeroJan 2024View details →

Flying, nectar-loaded honey bees conserve water and improve heat tolerance by reducing wingbeat frequency and metabolic heat production

Heat waves are becoming increasingly common due to climate change, making it crucial to identify and understand the capacities for insect pollinators, such as honey bees, to avoid overheating. We examined the effects of hot, dry air temperatures on the physiological and behavioral mechanisms that honey bees use to fly when carrying nectar loads, to assess how foraging is limited by overheating or desiccation. We found that flight muscle temperatures increased linearly with load mass at air temperatures of 20 or 30°C, but, remarkably, there was no change with increasing nectar loads at an air temperature of 40°C. Flying, nectar-loaded bees were able to avoid overheating at 40°C by reducing their flight metabolic rates and increasing evaporative cooling. At high body temperatures, bees apparently increase flight efficiency by lowering their wingbeat frequency and increasing stroke amplitude to compensate, reducing the need for evaporative cooling. However, even with reductions in metabolic heat production, desiccation likely limits foraging at temperatures well below bees' critical thermal maxima in hot, dry conditions.

opencc-zeroMar 2024View details →

Quantitative analysis of honey bee blood-ethanol levels following exposure to ethanol vapors

The use of invertebrate models has allowed researchers to examine the mechanisms behind alcoholism and its effects with a cost-effective system. In that respect, the honey bee is an ideal model species to study the effects of ethanol (EtOH) due to the behavioural and physiological similarities of honey bees with humans when alcohol is consumed. Although both ingestion and inhalation methods are used to dose subjects in insect EtOH model systems, there is little literature on the use of the EtOH vapor-exposure method for experiments using honey bees. The experiment presented here provides baseline data for a dose EtOH-haemolymph response curve when using EtOH vapor-inhalation dosing with honey bees (Apis mellifera). Bees were exposed to EtOH vapors for 0, 1, 2.5, or 5 min, and haemolymph was collected 1 min post EtOH exposure. Haemolymph samples were analyzed using gas chromatography (GC) for haemolymph EtOH concentration. The ethanol-haemolymph level of the bees increased linearly with ethanol exposure time. The results provide a dosing guide for haemolymph EtOH level in the honey bee model ethanol-inhalation system, and thus makes the honey bee model more robust.

opencc-zeroMar 2024View details →

A thermal performance curve perspective explains decades of disagreements over how air temperature affects the flight metabolism of honey bees

While multiple studies have shown that honey bees and some other flying insects lower their flight metabolic rates when flying at high air temperatures, critics have suggested such patterns result from poor experimental methods as, theoretically, air temperature should not appreciably affect aerodynamic force requirements. Here, we show that apparently contradictory studies can be reconciled by considering the thermal performance curve of flight muscle. We show that prior studies that found no effects of air temperature on flight metabolism of honey bees achieved flight muscle temperatures that were near or on equal, opposite sides of the thermal performance curve. Honey bees vary their wing kinematics and metabolic heat production to thermoregulate, and how air temperature affects the flight metabolic rate of honey bees is predictable using a non-linear thermal performance perspective of honey bee flight muscle.

opencc-by-nc-nd-4.0Aug 2024View details →

Honey bee nurse behavior - HB2017 OH4

Dataset of honey bee nurse behavior collected for:  Charbonneau, Pekora, Scavetta, Harris, Smithson, Sheahan, Tarpy, Linksvayer, and Vojvodic Kruse, Submitted 2024, Honey bee nurse task allocation shows short, frequent cycles of nursing and resting interrupted by occasional bouts of eating in honey bees

opencc-zeroApr 2022View details →

Effects of hive entrance orientation on honey bee colony activity

In an effort to determine the effects of the orientation of hive entrance on honey bee colony activity and temperature, hives were placed facing different cardinal directions (3-5 hives per direction). Hive weight was recorded every 5 minutes and temperature every 30 minutes from April 2019 to June 2020. Daily weight data were analyzed using piecewise regression. In southern Arizona from December to March, hives facing east started daily flight activity 50 minutes earlier than hives facing west, and ended flight activity 57 minutes earlier than hives facing south. During that period east-facing hives also lost only 62 g per d while north-facing hives lost about 100 g per d. East-facing hives were also about 7°C cooler on average than west-facing hives, although that may have been due to the movement of bee clusters within the hive. From December to March hives facing east also had significantly lower morning weight loss due to departing foragers than hives facing north (indicating more foragers) but higher weight loss from April-June 2020. Most effects were observed from December to March, probably due to restricted daylight hours and lower ambient temperatures. No significant effects were observed with respect to visually-estimated adult bee numbers (frames of bees) or the surface areas of sealed brood. We recommend hive orientation be taken into account in the design of field experiments that involve monitoring colony activity.

opencc-zeroApr 2022View details →

Supplementary tables for Honey Bee symbiont buffers larvae against nutritional stress and supplements lysine

Honey bees have suffered dramatic losses in recent years, largely due to multiple stressors underpinned by poor nutrition. Nutritional stress especially harms larvae, who mature into workers unable to meet the needs of their colony. In this study, we characterize the metabolic capabilities of a honey bee larvae-associated bacterium, Bombella apis (formerly Parasaccharibacter apium), and its effects on the nutritional resilience of larvae. We found that B. apis is the only bacterium associated with larvae that can withstand the antimicrobial larval diet. Further, we found that B. apis can synthesize all essential amino acids and significantly alters the amino acid content of synthetic larval diet, largely by supplying the essential amino acid lysine. Analyses of gene gain/loss across the phylogeny suggest that four amino acid transporters were gained in recent B. apis ancestors. In addition, the transporter LysE is conserved across all sequenced strains of B. apis. Finally, we tested the impact of B. apis on developing honey bee larvae subjected to nutritional stress and found that larvae supplemented with B. apis are bolstered against mass reduction despite limited nutrition. Together, these data suggest a novel role of B. apis as a nutritional mutualist of honey bee larvae.

opencc-by-4.0May 2022View details →

The attraction of western honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) to commercially available pollen substitutes and wildflower pollen

Many beekeepers supplement their western honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies with artificial pollen substitutes to provide colonies with adequate nutrition during times of low pollen availability or limited pollen quality. Here, we provided caged adult worker bees with three commercially available pollen substitutes (AP23, MegaBee, UltraBee) and wildflower pollen to determine which diet is most attractive to the bees. We measured diet weight change (as a proxy for consumption) and observed honey bee behavior to test for bee preferences for certain diets. We found that the bees interacted with and consumed more wildflower pollen than they did with any of the commercially available pollen substitutes. Ultimately, our data suggest that bees have a strong preference for wildflower pollen over that of commercially available pollen substitutes.

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2022View details →

Unpublished data on birds feeding on dead honey bees

The data were collected by me during two years with the aim to initiate a larger research project. However, I neither found the time nor the research funding for the project. Hence, I decided to upload the data so they may be used for a scientific publication, preliminary data set for a similar project, or any other research. About 2500 observations of birds visiting six honey bee colonies are available in the excel file.

FIG. 3. — A in An emic understanding of honey bees and their environment: attracting bee swarms to nest on rafters in Belitung, Indonesia

FIG. 3. — A "stowed" rafter (unggat type) with two colonies. Credit: C. Vuillier.

FIG. 2 in An emic understanding of honey bees and their environment: attracting bee swarms to nest on rafters in Belitung, Indonesia

FIG. 2. — Two models of rafters: A, sunggau muke; B, sunggau bantai. Credits: C. Vuillier.

FIG. 7 in An emic understanding of honey bees and their environment: attracting bee swarms to nest on rafters in Belitung, Indonesia

FIG. 7. — Two rafters taking advantage of the same access path. Credit: N. Césard.

FIG. 4. — A in An emic understanding of honey bees and their environment: attracting bee swarms to nest on rafters in Belitung, Indonesia

FIG. 4. — A rafter (tingku) in Central Sulawesi. Credits: N. Césard (A), C. Vuillier (B).

opencc-by-nc-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Trophallaxis interactions of three honey bee colonies

This dataset consists of the trophallaxis interactions analyzed in [TODO]. Please see its README.txt file for a detailed description of the data, and the paper for information about how the data was generated.  Academic papers should cite the aforementioned publication. Otherwise, please cite this Zenodo record.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Strength-mass scaling law governs mass distribution inside honey bee swarms

To survive during colony reproduction, bees create dense clusters of thousands of suspended individuals. How does this swarm, which is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an individual, maintain mechanical stability? We hypothesize that the internal structure in the bulk of the swarm, about which there is little prior information, plays a key role in mechanical stability. Here, we provide the first-ever 3D reconstructions of the positions of the bees in the bulk of the swarm using x-ray computed tomography. We find that the mass of bees in a layer decreases with distance from the attachment surface. By quantifying the distribution of bees within swarms varying in size (made up of 4000–10,000 bees), we find that the same power law governs the smallest and largest swarms, with the weight supported by each layer scaling with the mass of each layer to the ≈1.5 power. This arrangement ensures that each layer exerts the same fraction of its total strength, and on average a bee supports a lower weight than its maximum grip strength. This illustrates the extension of the scaling law relating weight to strength of single organisms to the weight distribution within a superorganism made up of thousands of individuals.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2022View details →

Economics Analysis of Small and Large Farm Size Honey Bee Sub-Sector in Chitwan District, Nepal

This is an SPSS file that can be used for calculating various descriptive statistics and performing statistical tests such as t-tests and chi-square tests. Ranking of scale can also be carried out from these datasets.

openother-pdAug 2022View details →

Collection of wing images for conservation of honey bees (Apis mellifera) biodiversity in Europe

Identification of honey bee (Apis mellifera) from various parts of the world is essential for protection of their biodiversity. The identification can be based on wing measurements which is inexpensive and easy available. In order to develop such identification there are required reference samples from various parts or the world. We provide collection of 26481 honey bee fore wing images from 13 countries in Europe: Austria (AT), Croatia (HR), Greece (GR), Moldova (MD), Montenegro (ME), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Serbia (RS), Slovenia (SI), Spain (ES), Turkey (TR). For each country there are three files starting with the two letter country code (indicated earlier in the parentheses): XX-wing-images.zip, XX-raw-coordinates.csv and XX-data.csv, which contain wing images, raw landmark coordinates and geographic coordinates, respectively. Files with prefix EU contain combined data from all countries. The resolution of the wing images was provided in pixels per meter. If the resolution was not provided it is not known. In those cases only wing shape and not wing size can be analyzed.  For analysis of the dataset see: Oleksa, A., Căuia, E., Siceanu, A., Pu&scaron;kadija, Z., Kovačić, M., Pinto, M. A., Rodrigues, P. J., Hatjina, F., Charistos, L., Bouga, M., Pre&scaron;ern, J., Kandemir, İ., Ra&scaron;ić, S., Kusza, S., Tofilski, A. (2023). Honey bee (Apis mellifera) wing images: a tool for identification and conservation. GigaScience, 12, giad019. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giad019">https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giad019</a> Oleksa, A., Căuia, E., Siceanu, A., Pu&scaron;kadija, Z., Kovačić, M., Pinto, M. A., Rodrigues, P. J., Hatjina, F., Charistos, L., Bouga, M., Pre&scaron;ern, J., Kandemir, I., Ra&scaron;ić, S., Kusza, S., Tofilski, A. (2023). Apis-wings-EU. WorkflowHub. <a href="https://doi.org/10.48546/WORKFLOWHUB.WORKFLOW.422.1">https://doi.org/10.48546/WORKFLOWHUB.WORKFLOW.422.1</a>

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2017View details →

Pigment-Dispersing Factor expressing neurons provide an infrastructure for conveying circadian information in the honey bee brain

A movie of a 360° view of the 3D-reconstructed PDF (Pigment Dispersing Factor) network in the honey bee brain. (avi file to be opened with for example Fiji ImageJ)

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2024View details →

Biting behavior against Varroa mites in honey bees is associated with changes in mandibles

raw data of the mite biting behavior, and parameters of mandibles for our manuscript "Biting behavior against Varroa mites in honey bees is associated with changes in mandibles, with tracking by a new mobile application for mite damage identification"

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2024View details →

Identification data for discrimination between honey bee (Apis mellifera) lineages

The data in dw.xml file can be used for discriminate between 4 lineages of honey bee Apis mellifera: A, C, M, O.  The discrimination is based on 19 landmarks of a forewing. The data were obtained from: Nawrocka, A., Kandemir, İ., Fuchs, S., & Tofilski, A. (2018). Computer software for identification of honey bee subspecies and evolutionary lineages. Apidologie, 49(2), 172-184. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-017-0538-y" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-017-0538-y</a> The dw.xml file can be used in <a href="http://drawwing.org/identifly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IdentiFly</a> software or in R package <a href="https://github.com/DrawWing/IdentiFlyR" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IdentiFlyR</a> https://github.com/DrawWing/IdentiFlyR.