8th September, 2020 (University of British Columbia)- Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) have been investigating aspects which may be responsible for colony collapse disorder (CCD) where it had been thought that queen bee failures is a significant factor. CCD is when the majority of worker bees disappear from the colony leaving the Queen, nursebees and juveniles.
It was discovered by the Canadian Association of professional apiarists that the queen could no longer produce sufficient fertilized eggs. To asses this, protein markers are examined. These proteins are activated within a queen bee when put under significant stress ie. heat shock, pesticide exposure, malnutrition etc.
During this research, the protein markers of the queen bee from a hive experiencing CCD was compared to a queen's from a healthy hive. It was discovered that queen's from hives experiencing CCD had higher levels of heat shock and pesticide exposure which creates detrimental effects on sperm viability. This has negative implications on the genetic diversity which makes it more difficult for offspring to survive, adapt to change etc. It also causes there to be a lack of worker bee population where the worker bees that were produced work themselves to death sooner as each worker bee had more work in sustaining the hive.
These bees are subject to heat shock due to climate change but the primary reason is the transport of bees from differing climate ie New Zealand to Canada. The high climate fluctuation puts the bees under serious strain due to evolution over millions of years in a completely different climate.
Alison McAfee, Joseph Milone, Abigail Chapman, Leonard J. Foster, Jeffery S. Pettis, David R. Tarpy. Candidate stress biomarkers for queen failure diagnostics. BMC Genomics, 2020; 21 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12864-020-06992-2
US EPA. 2018. Colony Collapse Disorder | US EPA. [online] Available at: <https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder> [Accessed 22 September 2020
