This summer, I noticed some odd looking capped cells amongst the beebread on frames drawn and filled this year. The cappings were dark and were only partially full. I had seen these kind of cells on NUCs I bought three years ago on very old combs (directly from almond pollination to Texas, then, to me). What caused the bees to cap cells like this? It was outside my experience....
Then, I read something that referred to "entombed pollen". That must be what it is. Here is an abstract from a research paper about entombed pollen, preceded by a picture contained in the article:
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/yjipa
‘‘Entombed Pollen”: A new condition in honey bee colonies associated with increased risk of colony mortality
Dennis vanEngelsdorp a, * , Jay D. Evans b , Leo Donovall a , Chris Mullin c , Maryann Frazier c , James Frazier c , David R. Tarpy d,1 , Jerry Hayes Jr. e , Jeffery S. Pettis b
a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Penn State University, 2301 North Cameron Street, Harrisburg, PA 17074, United States b Bee Research Lab, USDA-ARS Bldg. 476, BARC-East Beltsville, MD 20705, United States c Penn State University, 501 ASI Building, University Park, PA 16802, United States
d North Carolina State University, Department of Entomology, Campus Box 7613, Raleigh, NC 27695-7613, United States
e Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, 1911 South West 34th Street, P.O. Box 147100, Gainesville, FL 32614-7100, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 October 2008 Accepted 30 March 2009
Available online 8 April 2009
Keywords:
Apis mellifera
Colony collapse disorder Bee bread Honey bee
Pesticide residues
Physical encapsulation Entombed pollen
a b s t r a c t
Here we describe a new phenomenon, entombed pollen, which is highly associated with increased colony mortality. Entombed pollen is sunken, capped cells amidst ‘‘normal”, uncapped cells of stored pollen, and some of the pollen contained within these cells is brick red in color. There appears to be a lack of micro- bial agents in the pollen, and larvae and adult bees do not have an increased rate of mortality when they are fed diets supplemented with entombed pollen in vitro, suggesting that the pollen itself is not directly responsible for increased colony mortality. However, the increased incidence of entombed pollen in reused wax comb suggests that there is a transmittable factor common to the phenomenon and colony mortality. In addition, there were elevated pesticide levels, notably of the fungicide chlorothalonil, in entombed pollen. Additional studies are needed to determine if there is a causal relationship between entombed pollen, chemical residues, and colony mortality.
Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Inc.
Honey bee populations have been declining rapidly over the past 40 years ( NRC, 2007 ). Much of this decline, particularly over the last two decades, can be attributed to known causes such as the parasitic mite Varroa destructor . More recently, however, extensive losses of honey bee colonies in the continental United States have been attributed to a poorly understood phenomenon referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD (vanEngelsdorp et al., 2007 , 2008). CCD is defined by a specific set of symptoms, including the rapid loss of the adult population with no dead bees in or in proximity to the hive ( Cox-Foster et al., 2007 ). In an attempt to elucidate the causes of poor colony health in general, and CCD in particular, two longitudinal studies were initiated in the spring of 2007. One of these studies monitored three US migratory beekeeping operations, while the other studied the effects of various comb treatments on 200 colonies established from packaged bees imported from Australia.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dennis.vanengelsdorp@gmail.com (D. vanEngelsdorp), jay. evans@ars.usda.gov (J.D. Evans), ldonovall@state.pa.us (L. Donovall), CAMullin@ psu.edu (C. Mullin), mfrazier@psu.edu (M. Frazier), jfrazier@psu.edu (J. Frazier), david_tarpy@ncsu.edu (D.R. Tarpy), hayesg@doacs.state.fl.us (J. Hayes), jeff.pettis@ ars.usda.gov (J.S. Pettis).
1 Fax: +1 919 515 7746.
0022-2011/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.jip.2009.03.008
Pollen is a honey bee colony’s only source of protein, lipids, vitamins, and minerals. Forager bees collect pollen from flowering plants, pack it on their hind legs, transport it back to the colony, and deposit it in the wax comb near the brood nest. Food-handler bees then add an assortment of enzymes and honey to the stored pollen to help preserve it and make it available for eventual consumption as ‘‘bee bread” ( Chauvin and Lavie, 1956 ). Bee-bread provisions are easily identified in the combs as they remain uncapped and are often brightly colored, reflecting the diversity of floral sources visited by pollen-collecting bees.
‘‘Entombed” pollen, a condition described here for the first time, is bee bread covered by a sunken capping ( Fig. 1 A). At least some of the pollen stored in these cells is brick red in color ( Fig. 1 B); this brick red pollen does not fluoresce under ultraviolet light ( Fig. 1 C). In most cases the entire cell content is brick red in color, however in some rare instances the characteristic color appears only on the top section of cells ( Fig. 1 B and C). In subsequent, unrelated surveys of colonies in Florida and Pennsylvania, similarly capped bee bread was observed, but the cells did not contain pol- len that was characteristically brick red in color (hereafter referred to as ‘‘capped pollen”). Melting point tests revealed that the cappings on entombed pollen were composed mostly of propolis but did contain beeswax (n = 21). In contrast, the cappings on capped..............
Was I the last one to come aware of this?
