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Research Update from Lindsay barranco

5/26/2020

Research Project: Evaluating Native Bee Abundance, Diversity and Nesting Preferences in Small-Scale Wildflower Strips and Managed Turf Grass

Many people may be familiar with the terms “miner bees”, “cellophane bees” or “sweat bees”. These ground nesting bees are important pollinators of native plants and 70% of bee species worldwide nest within the ground (Wilson-Rich, 2014). Yet little is known about bee nesting preference (Cope et al, 2019), and which ground soil textures or ground substrates different bee species prefer, though there is evidence that bees will nest in sandy soils and have a preference for bare ground (Cane, 1991; Cane, 2015). As a graduate student in the bee lab, I am very interested in floral resources for bees (planting native wildflower meadows) and whether these meadows can also provide ground nesting habitat for native bees, especially since so many ground nesting bees have limited flight ranges up to a few hundred feet and must have food resources and nesting habitat in close proximity. I am also concerned about whether managed/mown turf grass can provide needed nesting habitat

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Research Update from Krisztina Christmon

5/26/2020

Varroa destructor, an ectoparasitic mite of the European honey bee (Apis mellifera), is considered to be the most important factor driving high rates of honey bee colony losses in the US and the rest of the world. Being detrimental to the honey bee population we still lack the knowledge of some of the basic physiology of mites.
Krisztina has been conducting research of Varroa destructor mite size variability within the United States which led her to investigate biotic, abiotic and genetic factors behind this phenomenon.

This research became a high priority when a small mite was discovered in the U.S. that appeared to be Varroa jacobsoni, the descendant of a shared ancestor of V. destructor that only infests the Asian honey bee (Apis cerana) in Asia. Molecularly it was determined to be V. destructor but it raised the substantive question of what are the selecting pressures for smaller mites in the US that may have consequences for bee management.

Undergraduate Honors Thesis: Factors that Affect Wax Production in Honey Bees

6/1/2018

by: Max O'Grady

Introduction
Beeswax is the most versatile material made and used by honey bees. Beeswax is used for many essential colony operations, such as the building of honeycomb for the rearing of brood and storage of food resources, the capping of cells full of ripe honey, and the construction of queen cells needed to make new queens. The unique scent of a colony’s beeswax is also involved in providing kin recognition cues between bees in the same colony (Breed et al. 1998).

Wax production can be influenced by a variety of known factors. Research has shown that comb-building periods coincide with periods of high nectar intake, thus creating a demand for more comb (Hepburn 1986). Also, since wax is originally formed within the bee’s abdomen as a liquid and gets secreted through the sternites as a small wax scale, the temperature of the colony must be above 16°C for this process to be physiologically possible (Hepburn et al. 1991, 2014). The interior colony temperature around the comb-building area must be somewhere between 30-37°C for the bees to be able to secrete wax and manipulate it to build comb (Hepburn et al. 2014, p. 235). Finally, when adult workers emerge from their cells, their wax gland complexes are not yet developed. Typically wax producing bees are between 5-9 days old, with maximum wax secretion in nine-day old bees (Hepburn et al. 1991).

For my honors research, I investigated how temperature, bee density (number of bees per given volume), and feed type affect wax production in honey bees. Understanding the factors that affect wax production may have important implications for how to most efficiently manage honey bees for the production of beeswax.

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Research Update from Lindsay barranco

Research Update from Krisztina Christmon

Undergraduate Honors Thesis: Factors that Affect Wax Production in Honey Bees

​by: Max O'Grady

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by: Max O'Grady