Awer Honey-Hunting Culture With Greater Honeyguides in Coastal Kenya

The remarkable mutualism between humans and greater honeyguides (Indicator indicator) is known still to thrive in only a few places in Africa. Here, we report on the honey-hunting culture of the marginalised Awer people in Kenya, historically a hunter-gatherer culture who today practise a mixed economy including significant amounts of foraging for wild foods. As part of a larger effort to document cross-cultural honey-hunting traditions in Africa, we interviewed six Awer honey-hunters to document their cultural practices. The interviewees reported that they depend on wild honey as a source of income, and that they readily seek the cooperation of honeyguides. Honey-hunting skills and the calls/whistles used to communicate with honeyguides are learnt from their fathers and other elders in village. The best time to honey-hunt is in the months following the big rains (August–December), when interviewees go out honey-hunting once a week on average. Honeyguides are not actively rewarded with wax, as it is believed that once a bird is fed it will not cooperate again for some time, and therefore after the honey harvest is complete, all remaining wax comb is buried. Honey-hunting practices are declining in this region, which interviewees attributed to drought and a lack of interest by the youth. These findings expand our understanding of how human-honeyguide mutualism persists across a range of human cultural variation.

Environmental Engineering

Bees engineer the environment. Their foraging activities change the floral composition near the nest, thereby changing the niches of other species that depend on the vegetation for food and shelter. Changes in floral abundance and composition resulting from their activities may also benefit them directly or descendant colonies. Honey bees also engineer their own environment by constructing a protective nest. The nest of the honey bee provides protection from the external environment by providing an insulated shell within which they live and wax comb to serve as a substrate for social interaction, food storage, and a nursery for raising larvae. They have community systems for healthcare, thermal regulation, and defense.

Efficacy of the larval parasitoid, Bracon hebetor Say. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) on the greater wax moth larvae, Galleria mellonella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) under laboratory and field conditions

The greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella Linnaeus (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is considered one of the most important pests effecting honeybee industry. The present study was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of the larval parasitoid, Bracon hebetor Say. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), on G. mellonella in laboratory, honeybee colonies, and stored wax combs. In the laboratory studies, the pre-ovipositoinal, ovipositional, and post-ovipositional periods of the parasitoid were 0.27 ± 0.45, 20.87 ± 1.5, and 4.33 ± 0.48 days, respectively. The total number of eggs/female of the parasitoid on the 5th larval instar of G. mellonella reached 71.77 ± 7.84 eggs. B. hebetor females paralyze their hosts, the percentage of paralyzed 2nd larval instar of G. mellonella was 30% and parasitoid could not lay eggs on them, while the percentage of paralyzed 5th larval instar was 100% and parasitoid could lay eggs. In the field studies, the parasitoid, B. hebetor was released in honeybee colonies and stored wax combs to evaluate its efficacy. By releasing the parasitoid, the mean numbers of dead larvae of G. mellonella in treated honeybee colonies were greater than in the untreated, (91.8 ± 5.319 and 53.3 ± 24.373) larvae/colony, respectively. Also, releasing of B. hebetor against G. mellonella in stored wax combs reduced the number of survived G. mellonella larvae in treated storage wax combs to 3.2 ± 2.38 than in the untreated (using formic acid) 9.3 ± 5.52 larvae/store colonies. This is the first work to study efficacy of the parasitoid, B. hebetor on G. mellonella larvae in honeybee colonies and stored wax combs. The results suggested that the parasitoid had the efficacy to be used for controlling G. mellonella in beehives and stored wax comb in Egypt.

Honey Bee Exposure to Pesticides: A Four-Year Nationwide Study

Pollinators, including honey bees, are responsible for the successful reproduction of more than 87% of flowering plant species: they are thus vital to ecosystem health and agricultural services world-wide. To investigate honey bee exposure to pesticides, 168 pollen samples and 142 wax comb samples were collected from colonies within six stationary apiaries in six U.S. states. These samples were analyzed for evidence of pesticides. Samples were taken bi-weekly when each colony was active. Each apiary included thirty colonies, of which five randomly chosen colonies in each apiary were sampled for pollen. The pollen samples were separately pooled by apiary. There were a total of 714 detections in the collected pollen and 1008 detections in collected wax. A total of 91 different compounds were detected: of these, 79 different pesticides and metabolites were observed in the pollen and 56 were observed in the wax. In all years, insecticides were detected more frequently than were fungicides or herbicides: one third of the detected pesticides were found only in pollen. The mean (standard deviation (SD)) number of detections per pooled pollen sample varied by location from 1.1 (1.1) to 8.7 (2.1). Ten different modes of action were found across all four years and nine additional modes of action occurred in only one year. If synergy in toxicological response is a function of simultaneous occurrence of multiple distinct modes of action, then a high frequency of potential synergies was found in pollen and wax-comb samples. Because only pooled pollen samples were obtained from each apiary, and these from only five colonies per apiary per year, more data are needed to adequately evaluate the differences in pesticide exposure risk to honey bees among colonies in the same apiary and by year and location.

Nest-mate recognition template of guard honeybees ( Apis mellifera ) is modified by wax comb transfer

In recognition, discriminators use sensory information to make decisions. For example, honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) entrance guards discriminate between nest-mates and intruders by comparing their odours with a template of the colony odour. Comb wax plays a major role in honeybee recognition. We measured the rejection rates of nest-mate and non-nest-mate worker bees by entrance guards before and after a unidirectional transfer of wax comb from a ‘comb donor’ hive to a ‘comb receiver’ hive. Our results showed a significant effect that occurred in one direction. Guards in the comb receiver hive became more accepting of non-nest-mates from the comb donor hive (rejection decreased from 70 to 47%); however, guards in the comb donor hive did not become more accepting of bees from the comb receiver hive. These data strongly support the hypothesis that the transfer of wax comb increases the acceptance of non-nest-mates not by changing the odour of the bees, but by changing the template used by guards.