Bees: Tiny Transmitters Placed On The Backs Of Insects Help Reveal Secrets Of Disease

Researchers at James Cook University in Australia have discovered that by gluing tiny transmitters to the backs of insects for the first time, this will help provide new insight into how disease affects the threatened insects.

"We just had to hold them in our hands and hope the glue dried quickly. It was actually quite a process -- they had to be individually painted, then individually fed, then the tag glued on," JCU's Dr Lori Lach, said in a news release. "Then individually scanned so we knew which tag was on what color and treatment bee and which hive it was going into. It all had to happen within about eight hours of emergence because as the day goes on they start learning how to fly and they get better at stinging."

For the first time, researchers were able to monitor the bees with the help of a unique set of technology that allow the bees to be monitored individually.

"No one had looked at bees at this level before, to see what individual bees do when they are sick," said Dr. Lach.
"While researchers had previously looked at the effect of nosema on behavior with such a low dose, the species of nosema used in the study (Nosema apis) has long been thought to be beningn when compared to other parasites and pathogens that infect honey bees."

So the researchers decided to use noseuma in the study (Nosema apis), otherwise known as many other paransites and pathogens that infect honey bees and that no one had previously looked for the effect of nosema on behavior, given such a low dose.

"We knew dead bees couldn't forage or pollinate," said Dr Lach. "But what we wanted to investigate was the behavior of live bees that are affected by non-lethal stressors."

Researchers found that infected bees were about 4.3 times less likely to be carrying pollen than uninfected bees. Furthermore, they also carried less when they did, in general. The infected bees also started to work later and stopped working sooner and died younger than counterparts.

"The real implications from this work are for humans. About a quarter of our food production is dependent on honey bee pollination. Declines in the ability of honey bees to pollinate will result in lower crop yields."

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