Beekeeper Charlie Brandts works with the beehive on the South Grounds of the White House, May 29, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Editor's Note: When we went food shopping recently, my husband held up some of those wonderful bear-shaped squeeze bottles of honey, asking, "Why are these so expensive now?"  Though I didn't respond with a "Haven't you been reading seniorwomen.com's inclusion of bee colony collapse or the trucking of bee hives across the US?",  we'll just publish another report about declining numbers of honey bees.

We found that last year the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, USDA may have indicated that a 'poorly performing queen' might be another cause for underproduction:

"An international team of researchers led by Penn State University has found that a queen bee's effectiveness at communicating 'availability' to potential mates could be a key factor in the future well-being of the colony.  Queens use chemicals called pheromones to provide detailed information to potential mates on their reproductive status.  That information is important because queen bees that mate with several males provide their colonies greater genetic diversity and a higher chance of survival.  On the other hand, these pheromones also signal when a queen has not mated well — and worker bees tend to remove poorly-mated queens."

A bee 'bungalow' by TerraTrellis.com

"The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture provided nearly $400,000 to fund the project. The team, comprised of researchers from Penn State, North Carolina State University, and Tel Aviv University, investigated the effects of four naturally-occurring stressors — mating number, nutrition, virus infection, and environmental toxins — on queen and worker physiology, behavior, and social interactions." 

" 'We found little impact of nutrition, pesticides and viruses on queen pheromone production and worker responses to the pheromone, which suggests that queens are really adapted to signaling their mating status,' said Dr. Christina Grozinger, director of Penn State's Center for Pollinator Research."

Hmmm. Is the female always to blame? Maybe we should consult that other Queen Bee, Beyonce, for her opinion.

The Bee Informed Partnership Report: 

Nathalie Steinhauer1, Karen Rennich1, Kathleen Lee2, Jeffery Pettis3, David R. Tarpy4, Juliana Rangel5, Dewey Caron6, Ramesh Sagili6, John A. Skinner7, Michael E. Wilson7, James T. Wilkes8, Keith S. Delaplane9, Robyn Rose10, Dennis van Engelsdorp1

1 Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
2 Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108
3 United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD
4 Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC 27695
5 Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843
6 Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331
7 Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996
8 Department of Computer Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608
9 Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
10 United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Riverdale, MD 
Corresponding Author: dvane@umd.edu

Note: This is a preliminary analysis. Sample sizes and estimates are likely to change. A more detailed final report is being prepared for publication in a peer-reviewed journal at a later date.

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