Progress 12/15/15 to 12/14/18
Outputs Target Audience:Results from experimental trials have been presented to other scientists at conferences and targeted stakeholders at local, state and regional beekeeper meetings. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The grant provided opportunities to network with other scientists involved in parallel fields and develop my oral presentation skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results have been presented at a scientific conference, we've submitted an abstract to Apimondia in Montreal in 2019, and we are finalizing a manuscript. We've given several talks to local, state and regional beekeeping meetings to raise awareness of the results with stakholders. The research on pesticides in pollen was presented at the national meeting of American Honey Producers in Phoenix, AZ in January 2019. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: Pesticide residues in bee bread were analyzed for six consecutive years from apiaries in over 35 states. Two insecticides (chlorpyrifos and fenpropathrin), and two fungicides (chlorothalonil and propiconazole) were frequently detected during the survey. We ran a large scale field trial in 2018 feeding colonies sublethal doses of the most commonly occuring pesticides. We applied field relevant doses, at a) 10% of LD50 of the two insecticides, or b) 2% of the LD50 for the two fungicides or c) a combination of both to treatment groups over a 30 day period. The contaminants were fed to the treatment groups through pollen patties, and incoming pollen was restricted by a pollen trap installed at the entrance of every colony. Foraging activity was recorded weekly at the hive entrance. All treatment groups sent out a higher proportion of pollen foragers compared to controls, though engaged in less overall foraging activity. Additionally, each treatment group consumed less of the pollen patty than the control group. Brood development was tracked from egg to emergence, before and after treatments. Following treatment, total loss of brood prior to emergence was 11.4% for the control group, 20.4%, 29.3%, and 20.8% for fungicide, insecticide and both contaminant groups respectfully. Brood cannibalization was significantly higher in all treatment groups. Queen loss through supersedure occurred in the treatment groups as well. We are finalizing our data analysis and preparing the manuscript for publication. We have planned future experiments to focus on the impacts of these fungicides on microsymbionts in the colony. Objective 2: We found that low level fungicide exposure reduced queen acceptance and caused queen rejection. The pheromone supplementation experiments were inconclusive and we are designing additional trials to investigate other nutritional supplementation to improve queen health.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Traynor et al (2018) Pesticide Residues in Bee Bread from the Natonal Honey Bee Disease Survey. EurBee 8. Ghent, Belgium. Sept 18-20, 2018.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Lamas, Z.S., D. vanEnglesdorp, K.S. Traynor. Queen replacement and brood cannibalism in colonies exposed to sublethal pesticides in pollen.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Traynor, K. S., S. Tosi, N. Steinhauer, R. Rose, D. vanEngelsdorp. Pesticide residues in stored pollen from the National Honey Bee Disease Survey.
|
Progress 12/15/16 to 12/14/17
Outputs Target Audience:The target audience were stakeholders, including beekeepers, farmers and home owners. Also other scientists working in this field of research. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?It has allowed me to present results at a national conference. It has allowed me to refine and develop protocols. It allowed me to increase my skill set in instrumental insemination. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Public presentations to stakeholders and at scientific conferences; published papers in open access journals What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Redo both experiments to see if trends are significant over additional replicates.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: We ran this experiment, but due to inclement weather the results were inconclusive. We experienced too much swarming. We intend to repeat the experiment this spring. Objective 2: We designed a protocol for supplementing larvae to improve queen quality. The intial results looks promising, but were insignificant. We intend to repeat the experiment this spring and summer to determine if pheromone supplementation does increase queen quality.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Traynor & vanEnglesdorp (2017) The impacts of commonly applied insecticides and fungicides on Apis mellifera nutrition and colony development. Entomological Society of America. Denver, CO.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Traynor, K. S., Pettis, J. S., Tarpy, D. R., Mullin, C. A., Frazier, J. L., & Frazier, M. (2016). In-hive Pesticide Exposome: Assessing risks to migratory honey bees from in-hive pesticide contamination in the Eastern United States. Scientific reports, 6, 33207.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Traynor, K. S., Wang, Y., Brent, C. S., Amdam, G. V., & Page, R. E. (2017). Young and old honeybee (Apis mellifera) larvae differentially prime the developmental maturation of their caregivers. Animal Behaviour, 124, 193-202.
|
Progress 12/15/15 to 12/14/16
Outputs Target Audience:The target audience reached during this year included several beekeeping organizations, as I was invited to speak by the Long Island Beekeepers Association, the Virginia State Beekeepers Association, and several regional beekeeping clubs. Changes/Problems:We experienced a very cool, wet spring, which significantly delayed colony development and hampered queen rearing opportunities. The early summer was then frequently punctuated by rain, once again making queen rearing difficult. Despite these poor weather conditions, I was able to develop protocols for supplementing queen larvae with pheromones and will repeat the experiments in Spring 2017. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has allowed me to improve my statistical analysis skills. It has also increased my public speaking abilities, as I presented to numerous beekeeping clubs. It has allowed me to network with well-established professors in my field, building a solid research network. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I will address objective 1 with a long-term feeding and survival experiment to be initiated this spring. I will redo the experiments for objective 2, now that I have developed reliable queen rearing protocols.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
This season I addressed Objective 2, developing appropriate protocols for improving queen larval nutrition. This required testing multiple methods of application to determine if the larvae would be reared to completion. The weather unfortunately did no co-operate well this season, making queen rearing more difficult than usual. The experiments with the perfected protocol will thus be redone next spring.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2017
Citation:
Traynor, KS, Wang Y., Brent C.S., Amdam G.V., Page, R.E. (in press) Young and old honey bee (Apis mellifera) larvae differentially prime the developmental maturation of their caregivers. Animal Behavior
|
|