Canadian province Alberta is at the forefront of honey production and bee research

The world's largest bee was spotted one fine June day in Felher, Alberta getting ready for the big honey flow.

In addition to housing the world's largest bee, Alberta is also the 5th largest honey producing region in the world at present, producing on average 30.5 million pounds each year (Alberta agriculture and rural development) primarily from wildflower, canola, clover, and alfalfa nectar.  Commercial beekeepers from the region supply pollination services to blueberries right next door in British Colombia and to canola crops in the southern part of the province.  Fairview, Alberta is home to an internationally recognized commercial beekeeping certificate program, offered by Grand Prairie Regional College that provides 11 months of education and paid work experience focused on training individuals for careers in the bee industry.  This program originally was offered from 1981 to 1999 and only recently resumed in 2012, currently instructed by Eric Stromgren.  Information on the course can be found via their link below.  

But wait!   There's more!  Albert is also home to Beaverlodge Research Farm and the Canadian National Bee Diagnostic Center (NBDC), a facility born in 2012 via collaborative efforts between Grand Prairie Regional College and the national Beaverlodge Research Farm.   This is, after all, the reason I'm bragging about Alberta on BeeBugs.  If you're a Canadian beekeeper and want to know what's bugging your bees, you can send a sample to the NBDC.  They offer a range of diagnostic services including ultrastructure of comb and brood as well as molecular diagnostics.  They operate out of a fantastic, modern research lab located on the Beaverlodge Research Farm.  offering microscopy and molecular diagnostic services to bee keepers interested to identify virus, bacteria, fungi and protozoa micro-parasites in their bees.   A link to their website is available by clicking their logo:  

So, if you're considering a trip to Canada, why not consider Alberta and go on a quest for current and historical bee-centric sights, eh?

Links:

GPRC Commercial Beekeeping Certificate Program

Canadian National Bee Diagnostic Center

Beaver Lodge Research Farm

Can you identify bee guts infected with Nosema?

Last week I needed to collect a fresh Nosema ceranae sample from a honey bee to use in an experiment.  We generally have a high prevalence of Nosema ceranae in the colonies here at the Bee Research Lab in Maryland, and a heavily infected individual is not too difficult to locate.  But, how do I tell if a bee is infected or not?  Some people say they can tell by looking at the midgut region of the bee's digestive tract whether or not they are infected by Nosema.  The midgut is the specific region of the honey bee gut that both species of Nosema (Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae) infect.

Do you think you can identify a Nosema infection by looking at the midgut?

Here's the test

• Adult workers were collected from an apparently healthy colony on July 3rd (that's right; no sign of dysentery, nosemosis, excessive bee poop on the porch, etc.) and brought to the lab.

• Bees were cold anesthetized on ice.

• Digestive tracts were then removed from 9 individual bees, shown below with both light (left) and dark (right) background.

Can you identify which of the 9 midguts shown are infected by Nosema ceranae?

 

Hints 

1.  At least one midgut shown is heavily infected with about 50 million Nosema spores.

2.  At least one midgut shown has no detectable Nosema spores.

Got your answer?  Give up???  Scroll down for the answers.

Here are light microscope images (400x) of the contents from each midgut shown above:

Only midgut #2 is infected with Nosema ceranae.  In some (#1, #4, #8, #9) large pollen grains are visible.  Some cellular debris (including what look to be lipid spheres) can be seen in the remaining images.  If you answered this correctly you were either a) lucky or b) know something I don't and were lucky.

What does this mean?

Gross examination of the midgut itself is not a reliable way to identify infected individuals.  I can never tell with any measure of confidence whether or not a midgut is infected, and I've looked at a lot of midguts!  It has been suggested that a field test can be used to diagnose Nosema infected midguts by visual inspection, looking for a light color and swelling.  This may be true for pure Nosema apis infections (with which I don't have experience), but is not true for the now most prevalent species N. ceranae and is also probably not true for mixed species infections.  As shown above, the lightest colored midguts (#5, #8, #9) were not infected and midguts equally large (#1, #7, #9) as the infected one (#2) were not infected.

How do I know this is Nosema ceranae?  

Because I extracted DNA from this sample and used a molecular diagnostic test called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with empirically determined species-specific primers that can differentiate Nosema ceranae from Nosema apis. (See Table S1 below from R. Schwarz and J. Evans. 2013. Single and mixed-species trypanosome and microsporidia infections elicit distinct, ephemeral cellular and humoral immune responses in honey bees.  Developmental and Comparative Immunology 40, 300-310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dci.2013.03.010 ).  Although N. ceranae spores are slightly smaller than N. apis, molecular diagnostics are the only way Nosema species identification can be reliably made in my opinion.

Illustrations from "Anatomy of the Honey Bee" by Robert E. Snodgrass

There are few detailed, high quality drawings of bee anatomy available.  Thanks to the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension for posting a digital copy of "The Anatomy of the Honey Bee" by Robert E. Snodgrass.  His anatomy drawings are some of the best made.  It's a difficult book to find in print, so the digital version is very helpful.

Images as well as a full digital version can be accessed via this link:

Illustrations from Anatomy of the Honey Bee by R.E. Snodgrass - eXtension

Since it's called a small hive beetle, does that mean there's a large hive beetle, too?!

Photo: Udo Schmidt, 2006; Oplostomus fuligineus Olivier, 1789;
Location: Senegal, M`Bour

I had the opportunity to speak with Queen Turner, a biologist with the Ministry of Agriculture beekeeping section in Botswana who is diligently working toward improving the health, management, and image of honey bees and beekeeping in her country.  Botswana is located in the southernmost region of Africa, just to the north of South Africa.  Honey bees in Botswana are maintained by small scale keepers primarily, who have just a few hives each.  Honey from the colonies is important as a food and revenue source for some areas but currently honey bees are not used commercially for improved agriculture pollination.  The Botswana Bee Importation Act of 1910 closed import and export of live honey bees from the country, but swarming colonies along border regions may ignore this law.  While the presence and distribution of microscopic pests (like viruses and bacteria) have yet to be determined, larger pests clearly occur.  These include Varroa destructor mites, wax moths, small hive beetle, and large hive beetle!  I doubt many beekeepers outside of Africa have even heard of a large hive beetle since they have not been introduced to other continents.  I certainly hadn't, so I did a bit of research on them.

Two species of large hive beetle

As it turns out, there are two species of large hive beetles: Oplostomus fuligineus (Olivier) and Oplostomus haroldi (Witte).  Both are specialized pests of honey bee colonies not unlike the small hive beetles Aethinia tumida, although they are not closely related.  Small hive beetle belong to the sap beetle family (Nitidulidae) while large hive beetles are a type of scarab beetle (Scarabaeidae).  Both appear to be strongly associated with honey bee colonies.

Morphology

A lateral and dorsal view of both a small hive beetle (SHB) and the large hive beetle (LHB) O. fuligineus collected from Australia and South Africa, respectively, by Simon Hinkley and Ken Walker are shown below.  The LHB are of course quite a bit larger than the SHB, with total body length of the LHB at around 20mm compared to the 6mm SHB.  O. fuligineus and O. haroldi are similar in appearance and difficult to distinguish from one another without close examination.

Small Hive Beetle (Aethinia thumida)

Small Hive Beetle (Aethinia thumida)

Large Hive Beetle (Oplostomus fuligineus)

Large Hive Beetle (Oplostomus fuligineus)
(All above images: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australian License by Ken Walker)

Distribution

Large hive beetles have been documented pests of managed bee hives in South Africa since the early 1900's, though they have likely associated with honey bees on the continent for much longer.  Both species of LHB currently are documented only from Africa including Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.  There is evidence that O. haroldi is more frequent in coastal areas vs. inland areas so local environmental conditions may affect their prevalence.

Impact on honey bee colonies

Although SHB are more prevalent in honey bee colonies in Africa, LHB are generally considered more serious and destructive pests when they occur.  Adult LHB occur more frequently on frames rather than bottom boards, where they consume uncapped and capped brood as well as pollen and honey stores.  Since they are about as big as a honey bee, it's probably much more difficult for bees to deter them off of the frames but bees will attack by biting at them.  Ms. Turner said bees will also cover these beetles in propolis occasionally.  Probably most importantly, the presence of LHB may cause honey bee colonies to abscond (abandon) from the hive.  They may reach peak numbers of 6 to 20 per frame for O. fuligineus and O. haroldi, respectively.  Unlike SHB, larvae of both LHB species do not seem to occur in the honey bee colony and typically live and pupate in decomposing plant matter or dung of cows or donkeys.

The spread of hive beetles

Neither species of LHB have been documented outside of Africa that I have found.  Unfortunately, the SHB has been introduced to North America (mid 1990's) and Australia (early 2000's).  The first official documentation of SHB in North America was from Florida in 1998 likely via a shipment of honey bees from South Africa, where the SHB is native.  A similar accidental introduction of LHB to other continents is theoretically possible if bees or contaminated comb were to be imported.  Given the large size of these beetles, they would readily be noticed during routine opening and examining of a hive.

 

References
Biodiversity occurrence data published by: Lund Museum of Zoology - Insect collections (MZLU) (Accessed through GBIF Data Portal, data.gbif.org, 2012-05-08).

Donaldson, J.M.I. 1989. Oplostomus fuligineus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae): Life cycle and biology under laboratory conditions, and its occurrence in bee hives. The Coleopterists Bulletin 43(2):177-182.

Fombong A.T., Haas F., Ndegwa P.N., and Irungu L.W. 2012. Life history of Oplostomus haroldi (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) under laboratory conditions and a description of its third instar larva. Int. J. Trop. Ins. Sci. 32(1):56-63.

Fombong A.T., Mumoki F.N., Muli E., Masiga D.K., Arbogast R.T., Teal P.E.A., and Torto B. 2013. Occurrence, diversity and pattern of damage of Oplostomus species (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), honey bee pests in Kenya. Apidologie 44:11-20.

Njau M.A., Mpuya P.M., and Mturi F.A. 2009. Apiculture potential in protected areas: the case study of Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania. Int. J. Biodiv. Sci. Management 5:95-101.

Oyerinde A.A. and Ande A.T. 2009. Distribution and impact of of honeybee pests on colony development in Kwara State, Nigeria. J. Agric. Soc. Sci. 5:85-88.

Torto B., Fombong A.T., Mutyambai D.M., Muli E., Arbogast R.T., and Teal P.E.A. 2010. Aethina tumida (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) and Oplostomus haroldi (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae): Occurrence in Kenya, distribution within honey bee colonies, and responses to host odors. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 103(3): 389-396.