Italian honey bees (IHBs, Apis mellifera ligustica) exhibit superior comb-building abilities compared with Chinese honey bees (CHBs, Apis cerana cerana), which often fail to fully utilize wax foundations, resulting in incomplete comb structures. The...
Honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica) are essential pollinators in both ecosystems and agricultural production. However, their populations are declining due to various factors, including pesticide exposure. Despite their importance, the reproductive...
Honey bees play a significant role in ecology, producing biologically active substances used to promote human health. However, unlike humans, the molecular markers indicating honey bee health remain unknown. Unfortunately, numerous reports of honey b...
Honeybee olfaction can influence foraging behavior and affect crop pollination. Odor-binding proteins play a vital role in honeybee olfactory perception. A previous study based on the antennal transcriptome of Apis mellifera ligustica in melon and to...
This study aimed to assess the impact of oleic acid (OA) supplementation on the biosynthesis of 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA) in Apis mellifera ligustica. In experiment 1, varying concentrations of OA (2%, 4%, 6% and 8%) were added to an artifi...
It is well known that factors acting on the decrease of population of honeybees, can act on the male and female reproductive system, compromising the fertility of queens and drones. While there are many studies on female fertility, only a few studies...
The effects of veterinary drugs, dietary supplements and non-protein amino acids on the European honey bee (Apis mellifera ligustica Spinola, 1806) ventriculum microbial profile were investigated. Total viable aerobic bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, st...
Two areas affected by cement plant emissions, in an industrial district of Central Italy, were investigated by foraging honeybees (Apis mellifera ligustica) on the return to their hives, as an in situ biomonitor. The contamination was compared with t...
The ability to differentiate between different Apis mellifera subspecies can have significant implications for their conservation. In this study, we explored the possibility of obtaining multi-level information that could be useful in assigning a col...
piRNAs are a class of small non-coding RNAs that play essential roles in modulating gene expression and abundant biological processes. To decode the piRNA-regulated larval response of western honeybees (Apis mellifera) to Ascosphaera apis infection,...
Nutrition is a key aspect influencing honey bee health and overwintering. Since honey bee seasonality in southern temperate climates represents a significant research gap, this study conducted long-term monitoring of honey bees in the Mediterranean (...
Lactic acid bacteria could positively affect the health of honey bees, including nutritional supplementation, immune system development and pathogen colonization resistance. Based on these considerations the present study evaluated predominant Lactic...
We present a survey on the environmental contamination of the Alviano Lake territory (Central Italy) based on Apis mellifera ligustica samples collected in two annual samplings (2019–2020). Concentrations of 30 elements were determined in the w...
Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a diverse class of transcripts that structurally resemble mRNAs but do not encode proteins, and lncRNAs have been proven to play pivotal roles in a wide range of biological processes in animals and plants. However,...
The mass rearing of high-quality queen bees is an essential beekeeping practice for producing new queens to maintain colony productivity. A strain of high royal-jelly-producing bees (RJBs; Apis mellifera ligustica) in China exhibits high potential fo...
Honeybees are prone to poisoning, also known as jujube flower disease, after collecting nectar from jujube flowers, resulting in the tumultuous demise of foragers. The prevalence of jujube flower disease has become one of the main factors affecting t...
Among the causes of bee colony death, viruses are among the number of pathogens that can contribute to the ill health of a colony. This study focuses on two of the several honeybee viruses, Slow Bee Paralysis Virus-1 (SBPV-1) and Deformed Wing Virus...
piRNAs play pivotal roles in maintaining genome stability, regulating gene expression, and modulating development and immunity. However, there are few piRNA-associated studies on honey-bees, and the regulatory role of piRNAs in the development of bee...
Unravelling the role of neuromessenger processes in learning and memory has long interested researchers. We investigated the effects of an acetylcholinesterase blocker, Methyl Parathion (MeP), on honeybee learning. We used visual and olfactory tasks...
A total of 45 Apis mellifera colonies were sampled from nine centers for rearing queens in the Camagüey province, Cuba. Wing geometric morphometric analysis was used to determine the ancestry and identify Africanization processes at different al...
Varroa destructor is an ectoparasitic mite of Asian or Eastern honeybees Apis cerana (A. cerana) which has become a serious threat to European subspecies of Western honeybees Apis mellifera (A. mellifera) within the last century. V. destructor and it...
At the end of the last glaciation, Apis mellifera was established in northern Europe. In Italy, Apis melliferaligustica adapted to the mild climate and to the rich floristic biodiversity. Today, with the spread of Varroa destructor and with the incre...
The complete mitochondrial genome of the Carniolan honeybee (Apis mellifera carnica) from Slovenia, a homeland of this subspecies, was acquired in two contigs from WGS data and annotated. The newly obtained mitochondrial genome is a circular closed l...
Analysis of the mtDNA tRNAleu-COII locus is a widely used tool to establish belonging to a particular evolutionary lineage of Apis mellifera L. (lineages A, M, C, O, and Y). In Russia, most of the area was once inhabited by Apis mellifera mellifera f...
DeepWings© is a software that uses machine learning to automatically classify honey bee subspecies by wing geometric morphometrics. Here, we tested the five subspecies classifier (A. m. carnica, Apis mellifera caucasia, A. m. iberiensis, Apis me...
Western honey bee (Apis mellifera), a eusocial insect with a superior economic and ecological value, is widely used in the beekeeping industry throughout the world. As a new class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), circular RNAs (circRNAs) participate in t...
Olfaction mediated by the antennae is a vital sensory modality for arthropods and could be applied as a tool in pest control. The ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor poses a significant threat to the health of the honey bee Apis mellifera worldwide...
In this study, we elucidate the contribution of repetitive DNA sequences to the establishment of social structures in honeybees (Apis mellifera). Despite recent advancements in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of honeyb...
The worldwide value of the honey bee as an agricultural animal is increasingly being recognized. Not only does the honey bee directly produce useful agricultural products, but also large portions of crops are dependent on the pollination activities o...
Honey bees are crucial pollinators that play a vital role in maintaining ecological balance. The colonies of managed honey bees in China increased rapidly in the past 20 years. Whether the rapid increase in managed bee populations would affect the su...
Sexual regulation in Apis mellifera is controlled by the complementary sex-determiner (csd) gene: females (queens and workers) are heterozygous at this locus and males (drones) are hemizygous. When homozygous diploid drones develop, they are eaten by...
The Western honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) is one of the most widespread insects with numerous subspecies in its native range. How far adaptation to local habitats has affected the cognitive skills of the different subspecies is an intriguing question...
Vairimorpha ceranae is a widespread fungal parasite of adult honey bees that leads to a serious disease called nosemosis. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are newly discovered non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) that regulate biological processes such as immune defense...
Rearing honey bee larvae in vitro is an ideal method to study honey bee larval diseases or the toxicity of pesticides on honey bee larvae under standardized conditions. However, recent studies reported that a horizontal position may cause the deforma...
While transgenic Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) maize provides pest resistance and a reduced application of chemical pesticides, a comprehensive environmental risk assessment is mandatory before its field release. This research determined the concentrat...
The management of municipal solid waste presents a significant challenge for cities. Facilities dedicated to sorting, treating, and recycling waste (including plastic, glass, metals, aluminium, and wood) play a crucial environmental role in urban are...
Honey bees are commonly used to study metabolic processes, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying nutrient transformation, particularly proteins and their effects on development, health, and diseases, still evoke varying opinions among researchers....
Honeybees (Apis mellifera ligustica Spin.) are the most significant pollinating insects, playing a vital role in maintaining biodiversity. In healthy colonies, the reproductive success of the queen and the genetic contribution of drones are essential...
The proboscis extension response (PER) assay revealed the responsiveness of three subspecies of the honeybee Apis mellifera [A. m. jemenitica (AMJ), A. m. carnica (AMC), and A. m. ligustica (AML)] to water and different concentrations (0.00001, 0.000...