Trigona itama is one species of stingless honeybees that produce more propolis than genus Apis and commonly practiced in Riau. Nowadays, the value of raw propolis is very expensive. However, techniques and methods to obtain propolis from T. itama`s were usually conducted by destroying nests that resulted in declining development and caused absconding. The objectives of this study were (1) to know the effectivity of propolis trap on T. itama box hive and (2) to examine the best manipulation technique of vegetation rotations of nectareous, pollen, and resin plants to stimulate the formation of raw propolis. Factorial Randomized Completly Design with two factors (the type of box and nectareous plant rotation schedule) was used as experimental design. Results showed that there was no significant interaction between the rotation techniques of nectareous plants and the type of propolis traps on raw propolis production. Also, by using strimin wire either on the side or on the top of box hive as propolis trap had significant value (37.20 ± 1.38 gram and 34.97±0.80 gram respectively) compared to plastic mica either on the side or top side (14.77 ± 0.16 and 12.80 ± 0.64 gram respectively). Yet, there is no significant effect of nectareous plants` (Shorea sp.) duration on the production of raw propolis.

Feeding experiments are standard tools in the pollinator risk assessment. The design (Oomen et al. 1992) was developed to test insect growth regulators and herbicides. In recent years there was an update (Lückmann & Schmitzer 2015) on the outline in order to also focus on the advantage of different rates making a dose response design possible where exposure levels are known. Additionally, this design gives the possibility to test different rates for honey bee colonies foraging in the same landscape. The main objective of the experiment presented here was to determine the natural variability of foragers losses of hives fed with a sub-lethal neonicotinoid concentration compared to an untreated control. Other objectives were to see if the neurotoxic exposure results in any observable sub-lethal effects and to find out if losses can be correlated to hive development. This was assessed with traditional methods and a novel, visual monitoring device.

With the increasing expansion of IoT networks, people are trying to connect more and more devices to data networks. Nowadays, such devices are made possible by platforms such as Arduino and Espressif. In recent years, one of the areas of interest for IoT has been the development and maintenance of beekeeping. Although there are various commercial solutions for multifunctional hive scales (BeeSpy or Alya), they are quite expensive. In this paper, we present a hardware and software solution to this problem. From a hardware point of view, our goal was to design such a device that would be competitive, capture various data using ambient sensors, and communicate over the new SigFox data network that was introduced in Slovakia in 2018. From a software point of view, we aimed to design and implement an application for smartphones. With this application, it is possible to fully visualize all acquired sensor data. The communication between the multifunction weighing device and the user's smartphone is ensured via SMS messages.

Introduction: Royal jelly is a secretion of mandibular and hyppopharyngial glands of young (ages 4-15) worker honey bees that is used to feed larvae in the first three days of their lives and queen during its entire life (Bogdanov 2012). Today, production of royal jelly and its usage by human is increasing as well as improving methods of production. China is the greatest producer of royal jelly, because they use high royal jelly producing lines and specific equipment and experienced beekeepers in the process (Krell 1996; Chen et al. 2002). No data is existing about the amount of royal jelly production in Iran, otherwise its consumption is increasing. Naturally, it is possible to harvest royal jelly from natural queen cells in swarming period of colonies, but at this way the amount of harvested royal jelly is very low. Colack Board and 24 hour methods are the most common methods for yielding bee queen in Iran, but their usage in royal jelly production have not been yet examined. So, this experiment was conducted in order to survey and compare these two methods of royal jelly production and determine the effect of this method on the acceptance of grafted cells and the amount of royal jelly harvested from each grafted cell and hive. In the second stage, honey productions of control colonies compared with experimental colonies and economic analysis of royal jelly production with these two methods are presented. Material and methods: This experiment was carried out in honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera meda) of East Azarbaijan province in 2016. We used 30 honey bee colonies headed by one year old sister queens and the same contents of the hive and then, they were randomly divided into three groups. Experimental design was 2×3 factorial based on CRD, which had two factors including method and period. Ten colonies were organized as 24 hour protocol, 10 as cloack board method, and 10 untreated colonies as control. For this reason, 45 grafted cells were added into each hive. Experiment was repeated three times in May, June, and July. Royal jelly was gathered in the 3rd day after grafting. Number of accepted cells was counted and the amount of royal jelly production from each cell was measured. as Also, the total amount of royal jelly production by each hive was calculated. Linear multiple trait model was used to analyze data. Statistical model was: Yij= μ + Mi + Sj + MSij + eij; where: Yij = record of each trait, μ = overall mean, Mi = effect of method, Sj = effect of month, MSij = interaction effect of method and month, eij = experimental error. The cost-income of the royal jelly production was calculated for the test colonies, considering the price of each kilogram of honey and jelly, 200 thousand Rials and 50 million Rials, respectively.   Results and discussion: Results showed that there was no significant difference between two methods in acceptation rate of grafted larvae. The interaction between two factors (working method and time) was not also significant. But, there was a significant difference between the months in acceptation rate; so that, mean comparisons showed the lowest larvae acceptance in July (%78.7200) and the highest in June (%85.2700). No significant difference was observed between two methods based on total royal jelly production from each hive. Also, the interaction between two factors (working method and time) was not significant. However, the effect of time was significant; so that, the maximum amount of royal jelly production from each hive was occurred in May (9.7730 g/hive) and the minimum in July (8.3295 g/hive). The amount of royal jelly production from each cell in different amounts was not significantly different. Also, the effect of method and amount interaction was not significantly different. But amount of royal jelly harvested from each cell significantly affected by method; so, the amount of royal jelly per cell in cloack board method was more than 24 hours method (262.66 and 236.87 mg/cell, respectively). Cost-Income calculation showed that, by production of royal jelly, we can add 919.5 thousand Rials to the income from each hive.  Considering the results of this study and other related reports (Sahinler 2005; Le Jiang 2001; and Elmi 2016), month and season had a considerable effect on royal jelly production. Colony internal contents (brood and food area and population) and external condition (honey and pollen flow) are varying with season (Buchler et al. 2013). Larvae acceptance and the amount of royal jelly could be affected by each of these factors. Larvae acceptance in this study was higher than other related reports (Kumar and Kumar 1999). Mean of royal jelly per hive in current research was lower than that of other report (Elmi 2016). It seems that environmental factors affected this trait. Due to climate situations followed by poor nutritional pollens in the nature, there was a decline in breeding quality of queens at the year of experiment. Mean of royal jelly production per cell was nearly the same as other related reports (Elmi 2016; Bogdanov 2012). Considering amount of royal jelly per cell, it seems that Cloack Board method is preferable to the 24-hour method. One of the advantages of the Royal jelly production on the experimental colonies was that none of the colonies had swarmed. Also, there was no significant difference between groups in honey production of three groups, and royal jelly production had not negative effect on the amount of honey production. Therefore, royal jelly production can be achieved by beekeepers to increase their income. Conclusions: Generally, the results of this study showed that the percentage of larvae acceptance and the amount of royal jelly produced from each hive are acceptable in both ways. The amount of the royal jelly produced from each cell in the Cloack Board method is greater than the 24 - hour procedure, and the use of the Cloack Board method to produce royal jelly can be more advisable under the 24 h method, because: the amount of royal jelly are obtained from each cell is high and there is no need for the removal of the queen and the colony develops normally. Furthermore, production of royal jelly would increase the beekeepers income by using any of the above methods without any negative effect on honey yield, and it has a positive effect on swarming tendency of colonies.

INSIGNIA aims to design and test an innovative, non-invasive, scientifically proven citizen science environmental monitoring protocol for the detection of pesticides by honey bees. It is a 30-month pilot project initiated and financed by the EC (PP-1-1-2018; EC SANTE). The study is being carried out by a consortium of specialists in honey bees, apiculture, statistics, analytics, modelling, extension, social science and citizen science from twelve countries. Honey bee colonies are excellent bio-samplers of biological material such as nectar, pollen and plant pathogens, as well as non-biological material such as pesticides or airborne contamination. Honey bee colonies forage over a circle of 1 km radius, increasing to several km if required, depending on the availability and attractiveness of food. All material collected is accumulated in the hive

Honey is a natural food widely consumed due to its high content in nutrients and bioactive substances. In order to prevent hive infections, xenobiotics such as pesticides and antibiotics are commonly used. Chloramphenicol (CAP) is a broad-spectrum antibiotic used to treat honeybee larvae diseases. However, CAP has toxic and nondose-dependent effects in sensitive subjects: for this reason, its use has been prohibited in food-producing animals, such as the honeybee. In this study, we proposed a rapid, simple, and cheap analytical method, based on salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction coupled with UHPLC MS/MS detection for the accurate determination of CAP in honey to be used in routine analyses. The parameters that influence the extraction efficiency have been optimized using an experimental design in order to maximize the recovery of the analyte by reducing the matrix effects. Therefore, the developed method was internally validated according to the 2002/657/EC Decision guidelines and applied to the analysis of 96 honey samples.

This paper examines how honey bee population dynamics, the scale and timing of almond bloom, and unmarketability of almond honey interact to create misaligned incentives for growers and beekeepers in the California almond pollination services market. We combine economic contract theory with data from the first pollination contract survey to examine the design of pollination contracts. 89.2% of respondents used contracts with minimum colony population requirements, suggesting that all colonies are not considered to be equal providers of pollination services. Contracts that involved enforcement every year provided the highest pollination fees on average, while those with no enforcement provided the lowest fees. We contribute to the literature regarding pollination services by demonstrating that the number of hives and price per hive present an incomplete picture of almond pollination transactions without information regarding colony strength requirements and enforcement. We also provide a theoretical rationale for why almond pollination agreements have anecdotally become more formal over time: as the marginal value of colony strength increases, the grower offers the beekeeper stronger incentives to provide high colony strength. California almond production is an extreme case of a crop relying almost solely on managed pollinators, but ultimately could reflect the future for many pollinator-dependent crops if pollinator populations continue to decrease while monoculture crop production increases.

Propolis is a resin made by honeybees from multiple plant sources surrounding the hive. Therefore, each type of propolis from different regions has intrinsic characteristics related to their chemical composition, such as antifungal, antioxidative properties, and extrinsic such as color, both specific to their botanical origin. Thus, propolis can be regarded as a functional food with preservative properties offering an alternative to the concern of the global and growing use of synthetic preservatives considerably harming human health. The aim of this work was to study three types of propolis, namely, Portuguese propolis (from Populus sp.), Brazilian red propolis (from Dalbergia ecastophyllum), and Brazilian green propolis (from Baccharis dracunculifolia) in order to evaluate the antifungal potential for its application as a preservative in food. For that, the chemical composition was characterized by LC/DAD/ESI-MSn. Also, the total phenolic content, flavonoids and antioxidant activity was evaluated through UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Concerning the antifungal properties, the values differed in relation to the types of fungi, to the inoculating concentration and mode of action. With this in mind, an analysis of their antifungal activities at two levels of concentration (0.5-1.5 g/L and 5-15 g/L) was previously evaluated in vitro, with the aim of selecting the best concentration of inhibition of the rotting diameter of two types of grapes, namely, red and white. Subsequently, different fungi were used to test the activity of the aforementioned propolis, namely, Alternaria sp., Botrytis cinerea, Cladosporium sp., Penicillium sp. 2, Aspergillus carbonarius MUM04.46, and Aspergillus carbonarius MUM04.52. This last experiment made it possible to measure the rotting diameter of each grape and to evaluate the antifungal capacity of each type of propolis, with the final aim of using it to design an effective product that can extend the shelf life of food. | A própolis é uma resina produzida pelas abelhas a partir de múltiplas fontes vegetais ao redor da colmeia. Portanto, cada tipo de própolis de diferentes regiões possui características intrínsecas relacionadas à sua composição química, como antifúngica, propriedades antioxidantes, e extrínsecas como a cor, ambas específicas à sua origem botânica. Assim, a própolis pode ser considerada um alimento funcional com propriedades conservantes, oferecendo uma alternativa à preocupação mundial e crescente do uso de conservantes sintéticos que prejudicam consideravelmente a saúde humana. O objetivo deste trabalho foi estudar três tipos de própolis, a saber, própolis portuguesa (de Populus sp.), própolis vermelha brasileira (de Dalbergia ecastophyllum) e própolis verde brasileira (de Baccharis dracunculifolia), a fim de avaliar o potencial antifúngico para sua aplicação como um conservante em alimentos. Para isso, a composição química foi caracterizada por LC/DAD/ESI-MSn. Também os compostos fenólicos totais, flavonoide totais e atividade antioxidante foi avaliada por espectrofotometria de UV-Vis. Em relação às propriedades antifúngicas da própolis, os valores vão depender dos tipos de fungos, da concentração de inoculação e do modo de ação. Tendo isto em mente, foi efetuada uma análise in vitro da atividade antifúngica em dois níveis de concentração (0,5-1,5 g/L e 5-15 g/L), com o objetivo de selecionar a melhor concentração de inibição do diâmetro de apodrecimento de dois tipos de uvas, tintas e brancas. Posteriormente, diferentes fungos foram utilizados para testar a atividade da própolis, nomeadamente, Alternaria sp., Botrytis cinerea, Cladosporium sp., Penicillium sp. 2, Aspergillus carbonarius MUM04.46 e Aspergillus carbonarius MUM04.52. Esta última experiência possibilitou medir o diâmetro de apodrecimento de cada uva e avaliar a capacidade antifúngica de cada tipo de própolis, com o objetivo final de usar essa informação para desenvolver um produto eficaz que possa prolongar a vida útil dos alimentos. | Trabalho financiado pelo Projeto DivInA (PDR2020-101-031734), no âmbito de uma iniciativa comunitária promovida pelo PDR2020 e cofinanciada pelo FEADER, Portugal 2020. Este trabalho foi também financiado pelo projeto GreenHealth, financiado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (ERDF) através do Programa Operacional Regional Norte 2020. Agradecimento à Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) e aos fundos nacionais FCT/MCTES pelo apoio financeiro ao CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020).