The Future of Bees, the Future of Life

Breakthrough science supporting better bee health

Honey bees travelling from flower to flower are more than just a pretty sight; the species is the world’s most important, and most threatened, pollinator. Environmental changes including increased pesticide usage mean high levels of concern globally about pollinator safety in the present agricultural climate. Eurofins companies are leading efforts to support and protect bee health and reverse the trend. Some of their innovative approaches in this area are now becoming part of standard industry protocols.

Eurofins’ Agroscience Services division developed an innovative method for fully investigating the effects of pesticides on the homing behaviour of honey and bumble bees. Tiny radio frequency identification transponders with unique identification numbers are permanently and harmlessly attached to each bee’s thorax. The transponders are registered by scanners at the hive entrance whenever a bee enters or leaves, allowing their homing rate to be assessed.

One sample of honey bees is fed different doses of an insecticide compared to an untreated control sample, and assessment is conducted within 24 hours of release. Available data covers the duration of foraging flights; the duration of return flights after treatment and during feeding studies; the return rate or homing success, and any confusion by the bees over hive entrances as a possible indicator of disorientation. The study design can also be adapted to include realistic field-exposure scenarios and to observe delayed effects for up to two weeks post-release. The Eurofins method provides data crucial to understanding the impact of the insecticide and any direct links between test types and their impact on bee health. Companies of Eurofins Agroscience Services participate in an international laboratory ring test aimed at developing a standardized test design based on this technique.

Just as innovatively, companies of the network pioneered a field application method to assess the impact of abraded dust from pesticide-treated seeds on honeybees. Varying particle size makes the dust inherently more difficult to test than liquid substances; however, abraded pesticide particles or contaminated dust contain high concentrations of pesticide and can prove toxic to bees actively collecting pollen and nectar. Finding a solution was imperative, but previous trials proved labour-intensive and complicated and were affected by numerous factors including wind direction. A Eurofins company developed a purpose-built dust applicator which improved risk assessment methodology and opened up a range of field trials to investigate potential side effects on bees and other organisms.

Understanding about bees’ behaviour is aided further by the company’s bee breeding programme. By raising the fittest possible queens, Eurofins supports the development of strong hives and standardised quality. With significant expertise in commercial queen production for the beekeeping industry, Eurofins is now able to produce mated sister queens, enabling proper trait-specific selection for breeder queens, perfect nutrition during larval development, and appropriate mating with quality drones. Breeder queens are selected from winter survivor stock from the 1,000+ colonies across Eurofins’ Bee Health and Management Solutions farms.

Eurofins companies also take an innovative approach to breeding methods for honey bees, using genome-wide DNA analysis. Working alongside the Institute for Bee Research in Hohen Neuendorf, Germany, and deploying Next Generation Sequencing technology, they selected bees with increased resistance to deadly natural parasites and virus infections in combination with the varroa mite. This guarantees breeding success, helping to develop healthy bee populations and to maintain functional eco-systems.

The science behind