The defence of the honeybee community

RESP-335

The scent perception of the honeybee

RESP-340

A Simple Iterative Model Accurately Captures Complex Trapline Formation by Bumblebees Across Spatial Scales and Flower Arrangements

PMCID: PMC3591286This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Ten years of invasion: Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in Britain

1. Harmonia axyridis was first recorded in Britain in 2004. Two subsequent earlier records were received from 2003. 2. The UK Ladybird Survey, a citizen science initiative involving online recording, was launched in 2005 to encourage people across Britain to track the spread of H. axyridis. Tens of thousands of people have provided records of H. axyridis and other species of ladybirds, creating an invaluable dataset for large-scale and long-term research. Declines in the distribution of seven (of eight assessed) native species of ladybird have been demonstrated, and correlated with the arrival of H. axyridis, using the records collated through the UK Ladybird Survey. 3. Experimental research and field surveys have also contributed to our understanding of the ecology of H. axyridis and particularly the process of invasion. Harmonia axyridis arrived in Britain through dispersal and introduction events from regions in which it was deliberately released as a biological control agent. The rapid spread of this species has been attributed to its high natural dispersal capability by means of both flight and anthropogenic transport. A number of factors have contributed to the successful establishment and indeed dominance of this polymorphic species within aphidophagous guilds, including high reproductive capacity, intra-guild predation, eurytopic nature, high resistance to natural enemies within the invaded range, and potentially phenotypic plasticity. 4. The global invasion by H. axyridis and subsequent research on this species has contributed to the general understanding of biological invasions

Life-Long Radar Tracking of Bumblebees

This work was supported by European Research Council Advanced Grant no. 339347

Conditioning Individual Mosquitoes to an Odor: Sex, Source, and Time

Olfactory conditioning of mosquitoes may have important implications for vector-pathogen-host dynamics. If mosquitoes learn about specific host attributes associated with pathogen infection, it may help to explain the heterogeneity of biting and disease patterns observed in the field. Sugar-feeding is a requirement for survival in both male and female mosquitoes. It provides a starting point for learning research in mosquitoes that avoids the confounding factors associated with the observer being a potential blood-host and has the capability to address certain areas of close-range mosquito learning behavior that have not previously been described. This study was designed to investigate the ability of the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus Say to associate odor with a sugar-meal with emphasis on important experimental considerations of mosquito age (1.2 d old and 3–5 d old), sex (male and female), source (laboratory and wild), and the time between conditioning and testing (<5 min, 1 hr, 2.5 hr, 5 hr, 10 hr, and 24 hr). Mosquitoes were individually conditioned to an odor across these different experimental conditions. Details of the conditioning protocol are presented as well as the use of binary logistic regression to analyze the complex dataset generated from this experimental design. The results suggest that each of the experimental factors may be important in different ways. Both the source of the mosquitoes and sex of the mosquitoes had significant effects on conditioned responses. The largest effect on conditioning was observed in the lack of positive response following conditioning for females aged 3–5 d derived from a long established colony. Overall, this study provides a method for conditioning experiments involving individual mosquitoes at close range and provides for future discussion of the relevance and broader questions that can be asked of olfactory conditioning in mosquitoes

Division of labor in honeybees: form, function, and proximate mechanisms

Honeybees exhibit two patterns of organization of work. In the spring and summer, division of labor is used to maximize growth rate and resource accumulation, while during the winter, worker survivorship through the poor season is paramount, and bees become generalists. This work proposes new organismal and proximate level conceptual models for these phenomena. The first half of the paper presents a push–pull model for temporal polyethism. Members of the nursing caste are proposed to be pushed from their caste by the development of workers behind them in the temporal caste sequence, while middle-aged bees are pulled from their caste via interactions with the caste ahead of them. The model is, hence, an amalgamation of previous models, in particular, the social inhibition and foraging for work models. The second half of the paper presents a model for the proximate basis of temporal polyethism. Temporal castes exhibit specialized physiology and switch caste when it is adaptive at the colony level. The model proposes that caste-specific physiology is dependent on mutually reinforcing positive feedback mechanisms that lock a bee into a particular behavioral phase. Releasing mechanisms that relate colony level information are then hypothesized to disrupt particular components of the priming mechanisms to trigger endocrinological cascades that lead to the next temporal caste. Priming and releasing mechanisms for the nursing caste are mapped out that are consistent with current experimental results. Less information-rich, but plausible, mechanisms for the middle-aged and foraging castes are also presented

Comportamento de cultivares de pepino (Cucumis sativus L.) em duas épocas de semeadura

Plant development and fruit production of cucumber cultivars 'Marketer IAC- 2 2 0 5 ' , 'Palomar IAC- 3 0 5 0 ' , 'Santee IAC- 2 4 4 1 ' , 'Verde Paulistano IAC-1336' and 'Aodai 1 - 4 3 2 1 ' were compared under two sowing dates, 5 t n of May and 5 t n of December of 1970 in Campinas, SP, Brazil, in a Yellow Red Latossol. Air temperature ranged from 1 2 , 0°C to 26, 8°C in the first period of culture, and from 18,5°C to 30,2°C in the second period. Adequate cultural practices were provided. When the first female flower appeared in the field, insecticides and fungicides applications were interrupted. For all cultivars, yields were higher and fruit quality was better in the first period of culture. Both in May and December cultures, plants have concentrated their highest yields between the third and the penultima te harvesting dates. 'Santee' presented low yields and the quality of its fruits was poor. 'Aodai' showed the best results as to fruit yield and fruit quality. Yields of the other cultivars were similar. 'Verde Paulistano' presented the latest fruit production. 'Marketer' showed a relatively uniform behaviour in both periods of culture. There were found positive correlations between yield in each harvesting date and total yield, total yield and marketable yield, number of fruits and fruits weight, plant height and yield, and number of lateral branches and yield. The relation between marketable and total yield, and fruit average weight, decreased at the end of the plants cycle.O desenvolvimento e a produção de frutos para consumo in natura dos cultivares de pepino 'Marketer IAC-2205', 'Palomar IAC-3050', 'Santee IAC-2441', 'Verde Paulistano IAC-1386' e 'Aodai 1-4321' foram estudados em duas épocas de semeadura, 5 de maio e 5 de dezembro, em Campinas, SP. Para todos os cultivares, as plantas semeadas em dezembro cresceram mais e desenvolveram-se com maior rapidez que as plantas semeadas em maio; entretanto, as produções das plantas semeadas em maio foram maiores e a qualidade de seus frutos foi superior. Tanto para as plantas semeadas em maio como para as semeadas em dezembro, 'Santee' apresentou produções baixas e frutos de má qualidade. 'Aodai' foi o cultivar mais produtivo e seus frutos foram os de melhor qualidade. As produções dos demais cultivares foram equivalentes. 'Verde Paulistano' apresentou a produção mais tardia. 0 comportamento de 'Marketer' foi pouco afetado pelas variações ambientais. As maiores produções de todos os cultivares, nas duas é poças, foram obtidas entre a terceira e a penúltima colheitas. Foram encontradas correlações positivas entre a produção de cada colheita e a produção total, entre a produção total e a produção comerciável, entre o número de frutos e seu peso, entre produção e a altura da planta e entre produção e número de ramos laterais da planta. A relação entre produções comerciável e total e o peso médio dos frutos diminuíram no final do ciclo das plantas

Honey bee visitation to sunflower: effects on pollination and plant genotype

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is an allogamic plant, which needs insects on flowering, especially the honeybees for seed production. Collecting nectar and pollen by honeybees in agricultural crops is essential to apiculture, as well as a better understanding of plant biology. The foraging behavior of Africanized Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera, Apidae) and its efficiency of pollination on seed yield of sunflower genotypes (open pollination and restricted pollination) were evaluated. There were peaks of visits by A. mellifera for nectar collection on the 2nd and 3rd flowering days between 7h00 and 8h30. The average density of A. mellifera during increased visitation ranged from 2.27 to 2.94 bees per capitulum. Nectar collecting bees were more frequent (2.28 bees per capitulum) than pollen collecting (0.40 bees per capitulum). On the 3rd flowering day, Helio 360 and Aguará hybrids had higher (p &#8804; 0.05) number of bee visits per flower head than the other genotypes. Seed yield was 43 % higher (p &#8804; 0.05) from sunflower plants that were visited by pollinator-insects compared with plants restricted to pollinators