pan-european assessment, monitoring, and mitigation of stressors on the health of bees

In this video PoshBee researchers from the Anses Sophia Antipolis laboratory demonstrate the process of analysis of pathogens in honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees.

The PoshBee project was presented at the 2021 edition of the EU Pollinator Week which took place online between 27-30 September. Project partner Dr. Dalel Askri of BioPark Archamps participated in the European Research Projects: Monitoring Pollinators and Their Stressors session, which focused on the overview of some of the EU research projects gathering data of the status of EU pollinators or the stressing factors that can affect them, such as environmental pollutants, pathogens,...

In an effort to increase the project’s visibility and improve the dissemination of all publicly available project outputs, PoshBee has recently launched an open research collection in the Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal. The PoshBee Project Outcomes collection in RIO aims to broaden the outreach of project results by publishing not only standard scientific articles, but also other pieces, covering the entire research cycle in a comprehensive manner. The collection  will...

A research article recently published in the British Ecological Society’s Functional Ecology journal, examines how the quantity of floral resources affects pollinator activity and how this relates to the structure and robustness of pollination networks. The paper titled "Patterns of pollination interactions at community-level are related to the type and quantity of floral resources" focuses on the relationship between quantity of floral resources and the number of flower visits...

A new PoshBee paper was recently published in the international, peer reviewed journal "Royal Society Open Science". The article titled "Pollen nutrition fosters honeybee tolerance to pesticides" evaluates the toxicity of acute exposure and chronic exposures to field realistic and higher concentrations of azoxystrobin (fungicide) and sulfoxaflor (insecticide) in honeybees, and the bee mortality rate in dependence with pollen diets of differing quality. The authors of the...

This PoshBee training video titled "Specialised Equipment for Honeybee Studies" was created by PoshBee researchers Matt Allan (Atlantic Pollination Ltd.) and Robin Dean (The Red Beehive Company). Matt and Robin carry out semi-field studies on honeybees in the UK. They have built enclosures and inside them, they grow certain crops and apply the stressors, the pressures that they want to study, to see what impact they have. In this video, the researchers examine the impact of the nutrition that...

A new PoshBee research article, published in the open access journal Science of the Total Environment studies the effects of sulfoxaflor insecticide and azoxystrobin fungicide on honeybees in a semi-field experiment with actual exposure. The article titled (Sulfoxaflor insecticide and azoxystrobin fungicide have no major impact on honeybees in a realistic-exposure semi-field experiment) presents the results of a peer-reviewed field realistic study. Giovanni Tamburini, Dimitry...

A new PoshBee video showcases laboratory experiments on pesticide exposure and pollen diet effects on bees. The team of PoshBee researchers from INRAE, France, led by Prof. Yves Le Conte, and including PoshBee researcher Léna Barascou and researcher Cédric Alaux, performed laboratory experiments aiming to measure the effects of pollen diet on the sensitivity to pesticides in honeybees. The video is created and narrated by PoshBee PhD student Lena Barascou. Pollen abundance...

A new PoshBee research article, published in the open access Journal of Pollination Ecology, studies the pollinating insects associated with twо mass-flowering crops - apple and oilseed rape, and compares the insect fauna of the main crop with that in the field margins in the grass-dominated agricultural landscapes of Ireland. Location of study sites. Numbers correspond with descriptions in Appendix I. Image created with QGIS software. Source: Bottero, I., Hodge, S.,...

A research article recently published in the Science of The Total Environment journal provides insight into the effects that the consumption of pesticide sulfoxaflor has on bumble bees. The article called "Sulfoxaflor and nutritional deficiency synergistically reduce survival and fecundity in bumblebees" shows that depending on the level of exposure to the novel insecticide, both lethal and sublethal effects occur, thus threatening bumblebee health.   Graphical...

Wild pollinators are a key part of European biodiversity and provide a wide range of benefits to crops, wild plants, and human wellbeing. In Europe and globally, wild pollinators are facing multiple threats, however, the full extent of declines, their complex causes, and the most effective ways to respond to them are not well understood. Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe's capacity to reverse the...

PoshBee coordinator Prof. Mark Brown of Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) participated in an issue of the academic podcast Know Show. The issue, called "How important are bees to society?", offers a rich discussion with Mark on a variety of topics related to PoshBee bee health research, as well as on pollinator policies across Europe. Throughout the episode, he tells the story of PoshBee and the project's place in the overall pollinator protection narrative. Mark...

What evidence is there on the impact of pesticide use on pollinators? How do pesticide policies differ across the globe? These are just some of the questions that will be discussed in a webinar on the policies and legislation on pesticide use hosted by Promote Pollinators in cooperation with FAO. Webinar on the policies and legislation on pesticide use. The webinar is to take place on June 30th at 15:00 CEST. It will focus on policies and legislation on the use of...

A new PoshBee field work video shows the early-spring application of PoshBee samplers on honey bee hives in Cork, Ireland.   The video was created by PoshBee researcher Eleanor Attridge of the Federation of Beekeepers of Ireland Associations (FIBKA), and it demonstrates the application of PoshBee samplers on honey bee hives. The video is kindly provided to PoshBee by Eleanor Attridge and is also uploaded

A new PoshBee video titled "PoshBee Research: Testing effects of pesticide exposure to bees and bee larvae" shows different research techniques performed within the project. PoshBee researcher Piero Onorati presents the different measurements he and his team at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) perform on adult honey bees of the Apis mellifera carnica species and bee larvae to find out the effects on bee health of three categories of agricultural pesticides....

PoshBee PhD student Sara Hellström of the University of Halle participated in two special Youtube videos that are part of an early-career researcher Youtube channel. The videos created by youtuber Palak Lakhani focus on the life of the research that Sara performs within the project and Sara's early-career researcher story as a PoshBee PhD student. The first video focuses on Sara's application and admission as a PhD student in PoshBee. She shared with the audience...

A new data paper published in the One Ecosystem journal called "Monitoring bee health in European agro-ecosystems using wing morphology and fat bodies" provides an extensive dataset of wing morphology and fat body content for the European honeybee (Apis mellifera) and the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) sampled at 128 sites across eight European countries in landscape gradients dominated by two major bee-pollinated crops (apple and oilseed rape), before and after...

PoshBee is improving its tools and aims to maximise the outreach of its scientific results and project developments! Two new surveys conducted by PoshBee aim to gather the opinions of partners and stakeholders in terms of communicating project results through the creation of different reports, databases, and tools for practitioners, as well as reviewing best bee health practices. The first survey aims to find out which are the most useful ways in which the project output can be...

A recent article in the DailyScience magazine (Belgium) titled "The Irresistible Decline of Bees" features an extensive overview of the PoshBee project and its purpose. The article provides information about the research performed within PoshBee, as well as the coordination and communication with various stakeholders, including policy makers such as the European Commission (EC) and the European Food and Safety Agency (EFSA). A bee on a flower. The article presents the...

This update on the progress of PoshBee WP7 was provided by Matthew Allen of Atlantic Pollination. Coming out of winter is a critical time for honeybees. The old bees that clustered during winter to keep warm now face a critical challenge. Do they have enough reserves, not only in stored pollen and nectar, but also in their own bodies, to produce the new generation of young bees? Did they cope with exposure to pathogens and parasites? Are the overwintered queens laying...