A bait station for survey and detection of honey bees*

A bait station was developed in response to needs by regulatory agencies to survey for populations of Africanized honey bees; it is also used in a honey bee abatement system. Bees were attracted with honey and Nasonov pheromone components (1:1 citral:geraniol). A feeder dispensing sucrose solution supported foraging activity sufficient for sampling bees and for abatement activities. Four efficacy tests were conducted using controlled, isolated populations of bees on an island. These and other survey results indicate high baiting efficiency during nectar dearths and favorable flight conditions, but lower efficiency during nectar flows. Properly conducted baiting surveys thus should be effective for detecting honey bees as needed for most regulatory efforts

Abating feral Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera L) to enhance mating control of European queens

Abatement of local feral honey-bee colonies was tested as a method to increase the mating control of European queens produced in an Africanized area. Feral colonies within 2 km of a commercial mating apiary at Belén, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica were targeted. Thirty-eight feral colonies were discovered in the 12.5-km2 study plot between 13 May and 6 June 1992. Abatement techniques included dispensing avermectin-ivermectin paste (applied manually to the abdominal tergites of drones captured during mating flights) and acephate-treated sucrose syrup bait (retrieved by foragers), and spraying nests directly with pyrethroids. Twenty-one of the known colonies were killed or severely weakened by treatments made between 27 May and 5 June. Mating control in pre-abatement (n = 27) and post-abatement (n = 26) queens was estimated by measuring changes in morphology and in frequencies of allozymes (malate dehydrogenase-1100 and hexokinase-1100) of worker progeny relative to reference populations of workers from local Africanized (n = 35) and imported European (n =23) colonies. Five of 23 morphological features shifted significantly toward the European form after abatement. Significantly more post-abatement colonies (85%) than pre-abatement colonies (63%) were classified by multivariate discriminant analysis as European (ie with a probability of Africanization of < 50%). Paternal frequencies of both allozymes were shifted significantly toward European frequencies following abatement; malate dehydrogenase decreased 26% and hexokinase increased 43%. Overall the results suggest that abatement may be useful in augmenting other mating control methods (eg, drone flooding and controlling mating times) but that it is probably not feasible as a unilateral approach to achieving acceptable mating control in heavily Africanized areas

A deficit of detoxification enzymes: pesticide sensitivity and environmental response in the honeybee

The honeybee genome has substantially fewer protein coding genes (approximate to 11 000 genes) than Drosophila melanogaster (approximate to 13 500) and Anopheles gambiae (approximate to 14 000). Some of the most marked differences occur in three superfamilies encoding xenobiotic detoxifying enzymes. Specifically there are only about half as many glutathione-S-transferases (GSTs), cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (P450s) and carboxyl/cholinesterases (CCEs) in the honeybee. This includes 10-fold or greater shortfalls in the numbers of Delta and Epsilon GSTs and CYP4 P450s, members of which clades have been recurrently associated with insecticide resistance in other species. These shortfalls may contribute to the sensitivity of the honeybee to insecticides. On the other hand there are some recent radiations in CYP6, CYP9 and certain CCE clades in A. mellifera that could be associated with the evolution of the hormonal and chemosensory processes underpinning its highly organized eusociality