Episode Details

Winter bees, those bees that emerge during the cold winter months when there is little to no exposure to the world outside, are very different from summer bees, which emerge during the hectic and exposed to everything bees are exposed to in their environment. In today's episode, we talk with Drs. Mohamed Alburaki and Miguel Corona, two USDA-ARS entomologists researching these differences and specifically the effects of the neonaticide imidacloprid on developing bee larvae.

The environment for winter bees is almost exclusively limited to what happens inside the hive. They live months longer than summer bees. Summer bees, on the other hand, live very short lives. Summer bees are either nurse bees or foragers, or maybe both, so they are exposed to all the things their environment has to offer. One of those is exposure to pesticides, the most common is imidacloprid.

It turns out, summer bees tend to prefer food given to them that has some small amount of this pesticide in it. The speculation is that the taste is what they are used to – all summer long they ate food tainted with this pesticide. Meanwhile, winter bees, who never foraged or fed bees with nectar or pollen exposed to this pesticide, didn't like it at all and would avoid it at all costs.

What this means for beekeepers is that managing your bees to avoid pesticides is the best option you can have. If you can't avoid it, be aware of your bee's tendency to favor the pesticide taste, if that is what they were raised on. It's a complicated and toxic world out there. Be aware. You can read this very well thought out USDA paper by clicking on the link provided. You may have to read it twice. We had to read it more than that, but it was well worth the time.

We hope you enjoy the episode. Leave comments and questions in the Comments Section of the episode's website.

Thank you for listening!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

• Research Papers: Imidacloprid and bee phenotype: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-022-00922-9
• Research Papers: Polyurethane vs Wooden hives: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2021.1999578
• Honey Bee Obscura - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

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