-We examined the consumption rate of protein diets in caged and free-flying honey bees, amino acid composition of diets, and diet effects on gland development. The effect of seven different diets (sugar solution only, Feedbee®, Helianthus pollen, Sinapis pollen, Asparagus pollen, Castanea pollen, and mixed pollen diet) on the development of the hypopharyngeal (HPG) and acid glands (AG) was tested in caged honey bees. Caged bees consumed the protein diet mainly at the age of 1-8 days, with the highest consumption rate on day 3. Different diets affected the development of both glands. The acini of HPG attained their maximum size in caged bees at an age of 5 days. Bees fed with Castanea sp., Asparagus sp., or mixed pollen had the largest glands among all test groups of this age. The AG sacs of caged bees grew in size between 5 and 12 days and were at day 18 less affected by different protein diets. Castanea sp. and mixed pollen diets were preferably consumed in free-flying colonies.hypopharyngeal glands / acid gland sacs / monofloral pollen / protein / nutrition

This article presents managed honey bee colony loss rates over winter 2019/20 resulting from using the standardised COLOSS questionnaire in 37 countries. Six countries were from outside Europe, including, for the first time in this series of articles, New Zealand. The 30,491 beekeepers outside New Zealand reported 4.5% of colonies with unsolvable queen problems, 11.1% of colonies dead after winter and 2.6% lost through natural disaster. This gave an overall colony winter loss rate of 18.1%, higher than in the previous year. The winter loss rates varied greatly between countries, from 7.4% to 36.5%. 3216 beekeepers from New Zealand managing 297,345 colonies reported 10.5% losses for their 2019 winter (six months earlier than for other, Northern Hemisphere, countries). We modelled the risk of loss as a dead/empty colony or from unresolvable queen problems, for all countries except New Zealand. Overall, larger beekeeping operations with more than 50 colonies experienced significantly lower losses (p < 0.001). Migration was also highly significant (p < 0.001), with lower loss rates for operations migrating their colonies in the previous season. A higher proportion of new queens reduced the risk of colony winter loss (p < 0.001), suggesting that more queen replacement is better. All three factors, operation size, migration and proportion of young queens, were also included in a multivariable main effects quasi-binomial GLM and all three remained highly significant (p < 0.001). Detailed results for each country and overall are given in a table, and a map shows relative risks of winter loss at the regional level.

Bee pollen is a natural cocktail of floral nectar, flower pollen, enzymes, and salivary secretions produced by honeybees. Bee pollen is one of the bee products most enriched in proteins, polysaccharides, polyphenols, lipids, minerals, and vitamins. It has a significant health and medicinal impact and provides protection against many diseases, including diabetes, cancer, infectious, and cardiovascular. Bee pollen is commonly promoted as a cost-effective functional food. In particular, bee pollen has been applied in clinical trials for allergies and prostate illnesses, with a few investigations on cancer and skin problems. However, it is involved in several patents and health recipes to combat chronic health problems. This review aimed to highlight the clinical trials and patents involving bee pollen for different cases and to present the role of bee pollen as a supplementary food and a potential product in cosmetic applications.

We investigated the importance of protein nutrition for honey bee immunity. Different protein diets (monofloral pollen of Helianthus spp., Sinapis spp., Asparagus spp., Castanea spp., a mixture of the four different pollen and the pollen substitute FeedbeeTM) were fed to honey bees in cages ad libitum. After 18 days of feeding, apidaecin 1 isoforms concentration in the thorax were measured using nanoflow liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Expression levels of genes, coding for apidaecins and abaecin in the abdomen were determined using quantitative PCR. The results indicate that protein-containing nutrition in adult worker honey bees can trigger certain metabolic responses. Bees without dietary protein showed lower apidaecin 1 isoforms concentrations. The significantly lowest concentration of apidaecin 1 isoforms was found in the group that was fed no pollen diet when compared to Asparagus, Castanea, Helianthus, and Sinapis pollen or the pollen supplement FeedBeeTM. Expression levels of the respective genes were also affected by the protein diets and different expression levels of these two antimicrobial peptides were found. Positive correlation between concentration and gene expression of apidaecins was found. The significance of feeding bees with different protein diets, as well as the importance of pollen nutrition for honey bee immunity is demonstrated.

No abstract