Harvesting Sugar From Nonflowering Plants: Implications of a Marked Sugar Bait on Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Whole Hive Health

Abstract

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are effective foragers for floral and extra-floral sources of sugars and as a result may easily be exposed to toxicants in the environment, such as pesticides. Toxic sugar baits (TSB) or insecticide-laced baits are designed for insect vector management but may be a danger to foraging honey bees and their hives. During a mosquito movement study at a zoological institution, nonflowering foliage surrounding the zoo was marked with sugar solution dyed with over the counter food-coloring. Mosquitoes and other insects foraged on the marked sugar and were collected within the zoo. Additionally, four of six honey bee hives within the zoo had workers that also foraged the dyed sugar and consequently colored approximately 57 kg of honey within the hives. This observation identifies a possibility route of toxicant accumulation within the hives from TSB and possible exposure may have whole hive health implications not previously described on an individual bee level.

Honey bees are not attracted to multiple new ant bait matrices containing sugar

“…Indeed I am unaware of any registered modern granular bait that contains sugar, nor any publication of bees being attracted to any modern granular ant bait. However, multiple new baits (treatment products with the matrix being an attractive food source) containing high volumes of sugar have recently been tested for use against ants (Boser et al ., 2014; Buczkowski, 2014 a , 2014 b ; McCalla et al ., 2020; Cabrera et al ., 2021), and other taxa (Kapaldo et al ., 2018). The presence of sugar in these baits could potentially attract bees, and any such attractancy would likely be fatal given that these products would typically contain general insecticides, including neonictinoids, which are known to be very effective at killing bees (Alburaki et al ., 2017; Christen et al ., 2017).…”

Coupled small molecules target RNA interference and JAK/STAT signaling to reduce Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti

“…While this broad-antiviral effect is promising, further investigation is necessary to elucidate the full impact our proposed small molecules may have when introduced as a field-based strategy. Because of the limited studies on the effects of DMAQ-B1 and AKT inhibitor VIII on insects, it is unknown if these drugs may be hazardous to beneficial species that could be exposed during mosquito treatment [ 13 , 45 ].…”