Colony Age Research Articles

A descriptive study of the biometrics of the stingless bee Lepidotrigona flavibasis in northern Thailand

Stingless bees play a crucial role in tropical and subtropical ecosystems, contributing significantly to biodiversity and pollination services. The species Lepidotrigona flavibasis (Cockerell 1929) (Apidae: Meliponini), found in Southeast Asia, has attracted attention for its unique nesting habits and valuable honey production. The objective of this study was to compare colony size and productivity between different nesting cavities. Twelve colonies of L. flavibasis were collected in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, to study biometrical data. Six colonies were housed in hollowed logs, previously occupied by Apis cerana, and six in bamboo cavities. The colony ages ranged from 8 months to 5 years. This study found that log cavity colonies had larger populations and more brood cells than bamboo cavity colonies. Results show that log cavity colonies had an average number of workers (3,842.6 ± 2036), drones (288.2 ± 511), brood cells (5,914.5 ± 3026), honey pots (290.5 ± 210), and pollen pots (96.8 ± 90). The bamboo cavity colonies were found to have an average number of workers (1,628.2 ± 575), drones (64 ± 58), brood cells (2,333.7 ± 1875), honey pots (127.3 ± 95), and pollen pots (94.8 ± 57). Overall, the log cavity colonies demonstrated greater colony size and productivity regarding adult bees and brood.

The postcolonial museum and nonsynchronous heritage

This essay proposes a concept of “nonsynchronous heritage” to reimagine the role of the museum in postcolonial times. Current discourses on the postcolonial museum have focused on important questions about decolonizing contested heritages, the restitution of looted artefacts, and making the space of the gallery relevant to minorities and non-hegemonic groups. However, these discourses cannot be detached from the problem of the museum as a cultural enclosure, a space born in an age of colonialism and capitalism. In postcolonial times, the aesthetic form of the museum shifted from an encyclopaedic exhibitionary complex to the sensorium of a capitalist utopia, embodying the extractive operations that also underlie formal subsumption and the international division of labour. From this point of view, the museum epitomizes a capitalist modernity fraught with inequalities and reflective of the expanding process of combined and uneven development. The heritage that museums conserve and appropriate cannot be reduced to the synchronicity of the present or a scenario of total commodification. As aesthetic form, the postcolonial museum rather testifies to globalization as a process of dialectical interlocking of different regimes of temporality. This nonsynchronous heritage can complicate the dilemmas pitting universalism against restitution, globalization against nationalism. A notion of nonsynchronous heritage drawn from the philosophy of Ernst Bloch can help rethink the role of the postcolonial museum. By no means external to the unevenness of capitalism, the contemporary museum displays a contested field of differing temporal strata and surviving historical ages still active in a turbulent and incomplete present.

Unearthed, Smuggled and Decontextualized Carl Schmidt and the Provenance of Hamburg’s Papyrus Bilinguis 1

Abstract Information regarding the provenance of papyrological material that was acquired in the Egyptian antiquities market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is scarce and often unreliable. This article investigates the provenance of Hamburg’s Papyrus Bilinguis 1, famed for containing the apocryphal Acta Pauli. By researching archival files documenting the acquisition and the context of the find, the papyrus is shown to have been acquired in breach of the Egyptian antiquities law of 1912. The article reveals how Carl Schmidt (1868–1938), the collector who acquired the manuscript for the Hamburg library, by concealing information, tried to cover up his own criminal involvement in the smuggling of the manuscript. Through the investigation of a manuscript that was acquired by a public German institution in awareness of its illegality, the article hopes to contribute to current debates on the translocation of cultural heritage artefacts to Europe and the US in the age of European colonialism and imperialism.

Age and growth of a habitat-forming deep-sea coral Solenosmilia variabilis in the New Zealand region: implications for fisheries management

ABSTRACT One of the most widespread and abundant habitat forming deep-sea corals in the South Pacific region is Solenosmilia variabilis. The age of this species was assessed using radiocarbon content (14C) on long dead, recently dead, and live branch sections of coral reef matrix sampled from the New Zealand region. Conventional 14C colony ages (yrs BP), for the living, recently dead, and long dead samples, ranged from 803 to 1186 years (Graveyard Knolls, Chatham Rise), and 907 to 11, 694 years (Louisville Seamount Chain east of New Zealand). Overall calendar ages, ranged from 84 to 292 years, and similar linear and step-wise growth rate data were obtained. Linear growth ranged from 0.2 to 1.3 mm/yr. From a conservative estimate of matrix height of ∼20 cm, it could take hundreds of years (∼150–660) of growth for a colony of S. variabilis to attain this height, and around ∼2000 years to build a colony diameter of 1 metre. Defining the age, growth and recovery timeframes of deep-sea coral can inform risk assessments of the level of susceptibility to trawling activity and their potential to recover, as well as provide options for the considered management of deep-sea habitats.

Material Masquerade: Porcelain, Sugar, and Race on the Eighteenth-Century French Dining Table

Abstract With the advent of biscuit porcelain at the Sèvres Royal Porcelain Manufactory in the 1750s, French porcelain at last achieved an ideal whiteness that could compete with foreign wares. Unexpected, however, was how this new material could replace the ephemeral sugar sculptures that transformed aristocratic dining tables into lavish multi-media assemblages. But replace, porcelain did not. Instead, the artificial whitening of both porcelain and sugar allowed the resulting figures to intermingle, playfully masquerading as each other while simultaneously erasing and displacing material histories linked to colonial expansion and emerging ideas of race. Taking up the ethos of the masquerade ball, whitening became the critical act through which these materials were ‘Frenchified’, moving carnivalesque early modern dining traditions into the age of colonialism.

Direct Isolation Method for Tomato-Infecting Phytophthora infestans

Infection of Phytophthora infestans at high altitudes in tropical regions causes symptoms of tomato late blight throughout the year. Even though it is very easy to find in the field, P. infestans is often very difficult to isolate aseptically in the laboratory. This study aims to evaluate direct isolation techniques that can increase the success of isolating P. infestans. Isolation was carried out on a non-specific medium, consisting of potato dextrose agar (PDA), corn meal agar (CMA), oatmeal agar (OMA), and water agar (WA) with three alternative types of antibiotics, i.e. chloramphenicol, amoxicillin, and rifampicin. Observations were carried out to determine the effect of the medium on sporangia induction and the age of the original colony’s growth in CMA and OMA media. The results showed that the isolation of P. infestans using the direct method was successfully carried out on non-specific PDA, CMA, OMA and WA medium. The highest isolation success rate was obtained on CMA medium with the addition of 50 mg L-1 rifampicin. The fastest sporangia induction (8 days) was shown by colonies grown on OMA medium with the addition of 50 mg L-1 rifampicin based on the category of abundant sporangia after 20 days of incubation. Rejuvenation of P. infestans colonies for research purposes in the laboratory is recommended to be carried out routinely twice a month. This research provides practical guidance for understanding the bioecology of P. infestans infecting tomato plants, especially for further study on oomycetes fungi.

Dynamics and drivers of fungal communities in a multipartite ant-plant association

BackgroundFungi and ants belong to the most important organisms in terrestrial ecosystems on Earth. In nutrient-poor niches of tropical rainforests, they have developed steady ecological relationships as a successful survival strategy. In tropical ant-plant mutualisms worldwide, where resident ants provide the host plants with defense and nutrients in exchange for shelter and food, fungi are regularly found in the ant nesting space, inhabiting ant-made dark-colored piles (“patches”). Unlike the extensively investigated fungus-growing insects, where the fungi serve as the primary food source, the purpose of this ant-fungi association is less clear. To decipher the roles of fungi in these structures within ant nests, it is crucial to first understand the dynamics and drivers that influence fungal patch communities during ant colony development.ResultsIn this study, we investigated how the ant colony age and the ant-plant species affect the fungal community in the patches. As model we selected one of the most common mutualisms in the Tropics of America, the Azteca-Cecropia complex. By amplicon sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region, we analyzed the patch fungal communities of 93 Azteca spp. colonies inhabiting Cecropia spp. trees. Our study demonstrates that the fungal diversity in patches increases as the ant colony grows and that a change in the prevalent fungal taxa occurs between initial and established patches. In addition, the ant species significantly influences the composition of the fungal community in established ant colonies, rather than the host plant species.ConclusionsThe fungal patch communities become more complex as the ant colony develops, due to an acquisition of fungi from the environment and a substrate diversification. Our results suggest a successional progression of the fungal communities in the patches during ant colony growth and place the ant colony as the main driver shaping such communities. The findings of this study demonstrate the unexpectedly complex nature of ant-plant mutualisms in tropical regions at a micro scale.

Assessing the effects of cold storage regimes of North American Bombus Gynes

AbstractBumble bees are the primary commercial pollinators for greenhouse‐grown crops and managing them requires insight into the Bombus life cycle. However, some aspects of the life cycle are not fully understood. Once mated, adult Bombus gynes can be stored for a short term at a constant low temperature (CLT). However, survival rates for some species are low during CLT, particularly when storage periods exceed a month. To address this, we tested the hypothesis that Bombus gynes stored in a fluctuating thermal regime (FTR) have increased survival compared to gynes stored in CLT. Specifically, the FTR had a baseline temperature of 2°C, with a daily fluctuation to 20°C relative to the CLT of 2°C with no warming pulse. We tested the effects of FTR on gyne survival and post‐cold storage lipid content in three species used for commercial pollination in North America: B. vosnesenskii, B. huntii and B. impatiens. We further assessed how additional factors influence cold storage survival, including gyne body weight, body size and colony age. Survival responses varied among species. Bombus vosnesenskii and B. huntii had a lower survival rate in FTR compared to CLT, but B. impatiens gynes had a significantly higher survival rate in FTR. We did not observe significant effects of FTR on lipid stores for any species, but survival increased with an increasing initial weight prior to cold storage. Moreover, gynes produced later in the colony life cycle had lower body weight and decreased survival compared to early emerging gynes. Our study provides insight into how cold storage conditions interact with colony and gyne characteristics to influence captive overwintering survival. Our findings have economic applications for improving commercial rearing and efforts for conservation rearing of at‐risk Bombus species.

Impact of colony age on Trigona sp. activities in the green zones of Universitas Sumatera Utara Campus

Trigona, a stingless bee pollinator, is widely domesticated for plant pollination due to its versatility and adaptability to various environments. This study aimed to assess the suitability of green open spaces in Universitas Sumatera Utara campus as a potential habitat for introducing Trigona sp. and to observe how colony age affects the foraging behavior of worker bees. Bee colonies were introduced into specific areas within the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences garden, positioned at a height of 3.4 meters above ground level. Nine bee hives were strategically placed around the garden for observations in October 2022, focusing on three different colonies based on their ages i.e. 2 m.o (Colony-A), 4 m.o (Colony-B), and 6 m.o (Colony-C). Activities were closely monitored between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, with at least three measurements taken for each 10-minute interval. The results showed variations in foraging activity among colonies in terms of peak hours and the number of worker bees. Colonies aged 4 and 6 months had over 50 foragers, while the 2-month-old colony had fewer. Notably, the 6-month-old colony displayed the highest average number of workers engaged in transporting pollen and resin, particularly at 9:00-10:00 AM. Results of Pearson’s correlation analysis indicated that light intensity negatively and significantly influenced the number of returning/entering worker bees, while wind velocity posed a negative and significant impact on the number of returning bees carrying resin. This study provides practical implications for the successful integration of Trigona bees into green open spaces, particularly inside campus area.

A Topic Modelling of Muslim Religious Reform in the Colonial Age: A Computational and Digital Study of al-Manār (1898-1935)

The present paper is a test case of how far computational sciences and Islamic and Arabic studies can be “partners” in answering cultural-religious and historical questions related to the Arab and Muslim world. The paper mainly discusses methods that could help us computationally track, quantify, and explain the development of religious concerns of reform as reflected in the well-known Muslim reformist journal al-Manār (Lighthouse), published by the Muslim reformer Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865-1935) from 1898 until 1935 in Cairo. We employ quantitative and qualitative methods based on al-Manār-corpus by using morphological processing, topic modeling in order to examine the thematic co-occurrences of the topics and lexemes pertaining to Muslim thinking and societies in Riḍā’s time.

Warmer autumns and winters could reduce honey bee overwintering survival with potential risks for pollination services

Honey bees and other pollinators are critical for food production and nutritional security but face multiple survival challenges. The effect of climate change on honey bee colony losses is only recently being explored. While correlations between higher winter temperatures and greater colony losses have been noted, the impacts of warmer autumn and winter temperatures on colony population dynamics and age structure as an underlying cause of reduced colony survival have not been examined. Focusing on the Pacific Northwest US, our objectives were to (a) quantify the effect of warmer autumns and winters on honey bee foraging activity, the age structure of the overwintering cluster, and spring colony losses, and (b) evaluate indoor cold storage as a management strategy to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. We perform simulations using the VARROAPOP population dynamics model driven by future climate projections to address these objectives. Results indicate that expanding geographic areas will have warmer autumns and winters extending honey bee flight times. Our simulations support the hypothesis that late-season flight alters the overwintering colony age structure, skews the population towards older bees, and leads to greater risks of colony failure in the spring. Management intervention by moving colonies to cold storage facilities for overwintering has the potential to reduce honey bee colony losses. However, critical gaps remain in how to optimize winter management strategies to improve the survival of overwintering colonies in different locations and conditions. It is imperative that we bridge the gaps to sustain honey bees and the beekeeping industry and ensure food and nutritional security.

Judaica Librarianship: Back to the Future

Abstract The Library of Congress Classification system was designed during the age of colonialism, and as such, poorly represents the information-seeking behavior of present-day users. Students of Judaica are especially hindered by the limited scope of the B class (Philosophy and Religion) of the Library of Congress Classification system, which extensively classifies Christian material, but limits the thematic classification of Judaic subjects. Qualitative data collected on students of Jewish thought via a proposed questionnaire is anticipated to shed light on the specialized information-seeking behavior of Judaic students. The thematic coding and analysis of such data would assist in selecting an appropriate classification system that will complement Judaica scholarship or facilitate the creation of a novel classification system. More inclusively, such an endeavor may contribute to the understanding of specialized efforts in librarianship.

INTERPRETATION ON SOME POSSIBLE DEPICTIONS OF THE HITTITE TUTELARY DEITY OF THE COUNTRYSIDE

This paper focuses on the depictions of deities on stag seen in Anatolia and its surroundings during the second millennium BC. DLAMMA.LĺL “Tutelary Deity of the Countryside” can be considered as one of the deities represented by the name rendered as DKAL. Although the deity is identified with the hunting deity and the Stag-god (Ku)Runtiya and Innara/Annari in the Assyrian Colony Period, as suggested earlier, further support for this identification is rendered in this paper. Additionally, there are criticisms on the differentiation in the iconographic appearance of the deity during the second millennium BC and other depictions associated with this deity. Concordantly, the deity is depicted on a stag in the Assyrian Colony Age, with a bird in his hand emphasizing the deity’s hunting character and a lituus in the other hand. The iconographic features of the deity seem to have been preserved during the transition from the Colony Age to the Hittite Period. The depictions associated with the deity in Hittite Period can be divided into three groups. The first group comprises imagery whereby the deity holds a lituus in his hand, which may be related to the deity's rise to prominence in the state cult. The only difference in the second group, which is other similar to the first group, is that the deity stands on the ground instead of standing on a stag. The deity, assumed to be equated with the Tutelary Deity of the Countryside and included in the descriptions that can be called the third group, is depicted in a typical libation scene, sitting on a cross stool and holding a bird in his hand. However, this latter deity must obviously be a different deity in terms of its iconographic features. The Stag-god, who is the deity of wildlife and hunting in the Late Hittite Period art, stands on a stag. However, the hunter title of the deity is represented sometimes by a bird he holds in his hand, and sometimes by a bow and spear. This can also be associated with hunting. It is during this period that the winged sun disk (instead of lituus), can be interpreted as a continuation of the custom also regarding the deity in the state cult, as it began to appear in the depictions of the deity.

Symbiotic communities associated with nursery-reared and natural corals: are they similar?

Coral aquaculture techniques have been developed for many species based on a well-documented understanding of the factors that affect coral growth and fitness. However, there is limited knowledge about the composition and structure of ectosymbiotic communities associated with cultured coral colonies. To address this gap, we conducted a study ofPocillopora verrucosacolonies reared from fragments in fixed nurseries and exposed for 6 and 12 months, as well as natural colonies in the same location. Our analysis focused on the species composition, species richness, and density of obligate and facultative ectosymbionts associated with the colonies. Obtained results indicate that the community associated with nursery-reared colonies was highly diverse, comprising 25 ectosymbionts, including 9 obligate and 16 facultative species. The prevalence, species richness, and density of the communities associated with natural colonies were significantly higher than those associated with reared ones. We also observed differences in the communities associated with reared colonies of different exposures, but we were able to group them as stages of the same community based on the size and exposure of the colonies. The differences between communities associated with reared and natural colonies may be related to the microhabitat properties of the symbiotic communities, as the former were elevated above the substrate, while the latter were attached to it. The age of natural colonies was also estimated to be more than three times higher than that of reared colonies of the same size, contributing to the differences. Our study clearly demonstrates that coral nurseries not only serve as a means of propagating corals but also offer artificial habitats for the maintenance and conservation of associated fauna. These findings have important implications for the management and conservation of coral reefs.

Colonialism and a history of oppression in Africa: Scenes from selected African novels

Examining the African suffering during the colonialism period and describing the different miseries of the African people have been the core theme of almost all African and Western writers during the colonial age and post-colonial time. Undoubtedly, all of these writings fluctuate considerably between exaggeration and degrading the human sacrifices of those countries during this period. Then, the African writers started taking the responsibility of narrating their history and describing their suffering to correct many false ideas and assumptions, many false conceptions which were established in the minds of consecutive generations. Chinua Achebe is one of the prominent authors and thinkers who has received international recognition due to his creative style of telling the African story and has impacted African literature in different ways. Through his books, he exposed many of the negative colonial impacts on the African communities and how they did their best to invade these countries politically, economically, and culturally. Achebe tried to uncover their claims, like linking Christianity and commerce together, and the only way to African progress should be through the European gates. In his novel Things Fall Apart, he tried to expose the side effects of the colonizers’ intentions to redesign the African communities up to Western standards. He assured that all colonial actions resulted in the colonizers’ good interests and were against African people. On the other hand, Ngugi Thiogn’o is interested in examining the post-colonial impacts on the African nations and how the Western colonizers succeeded in producing loyal followers adopting their beliefs and concepts. Those followers replaced the foreign occupation with another type of occupation where the people’s acceptance should be evaluated by their adaptability to the Western criteria in all life aspects. In his novel, Pedals of Blood, Thiog’o narrated the impacts of using foreign languages to diffuse the indigenous culture and lose the African identity. Throughout the novel, he examined the political elite’s corruption in African countries during the post-colonial period and how they continued colonial suppression of their nations.

SAME/DIFFERENCE? TOWARD A SAPPHIC/NONBINARY SEXUALITY OF HISTORY

ABSTRACTWhat is the next step when one has published a strong intervention in a field but later recognizes that one's angle of vision deserves new scrutiny? In this article, which began as a roundtable talk, I return to The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565–1830 (2014) to interrogate its “same‐sex” logic through a nonbinary/trans lens. My book argues that seventeenth‐ and eighteenth‐century representations of the sapphic became a flash point for European cultures grappling with questions of power and governance, desire and duty, mobility and difference in an age of colonialism, racial capitalism, revolution, and reaction. In figuring the sapphic exclusively through notions of sameness, however, The Sexuality of History does not do justice to trans and nonbinary figures both historical and fictional. Is there a place among sapphic subjects for these figures, and, if so, with what implications? I argue here for a both/and approach that requires recoding certain figures as nonbinary while still insisting on their efficacy as signs of the sapphic. This recoding encourages a more nuanced exploration of the cultural work performed by sapphic representations and a more expansive conception of what I have called a sapphic episteme. Such revisionist thinking may be useful at a time of social and theoretical tensions at the intersections of “lesbian” and “trans.”

Toward broad-scale mapping and characterization of prairie dog colonies from airborne imagery using deep learning

Monitoring wildlife is fundamental to managing the health of rangelands but challenging due to the extensive and dynamic nature of these ecosystems. The black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) is considered both a keystone species of conservation concern and an agricultural pest. This animal is an example of a wildlife species for which detailed monitoring is both high priority and difficult to accomplish cost-effectively using ground-based methods. In this study, we conducted a robust evaluation of the potential to use deep learning to detect prairie dog burrows from remotely sensed imagery acquired from unoccupied aerial systems (UAS). We processed UAS imagery to create RGB, topographic position index (TPI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) products at varying spatial resolutions (2–30 cm). We then evaluated the minimum set of inputs and image resolution required to train a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) for burrow detection and scale this up to identify entire colonies. We validated results at the scale of individual burrows, sub-colony burrow density and range-wide colony area using ground and digitized observations. We found the 2 cm imagery proved computationally impractical for scaling, but performance did not decline between 2 and 5 cm imagery, and models performed well up to 10–15 cm. The top models always included TPI and the combination of RGB + TPI tended to perform best across spatial resolutions. Adding NDVI generally did not improve model performance. At 5 cm resolution, the top models achieved high precision and recall for detecting individual burrows (F-score 0.84–0.87) and burrow density was strongly correlated with validation data (r = 0.94–0.95). In pastures with active colonies, overlap between predicted and ground delineated colonies was high (60–94%). The CNN-based approach could not distinguish between currently active colonies and a colony that had recently become inactive due to a sylvatic plague (Yersinia pestis) epizootic. However, further analysis showed that CNN-derived burrow density was related to colony age and satellite-derived vegetation conditions in active colonies, and that the plague-affected colony deviated from expected vegetation trends. We conclude that a deep learning algorithm can accurately detect prairie dog burrows from UAS imagery acquired at 5–10 cm resolution, and that scaling from individual burrows to entire colonies is achievable but warrants further research. Combining CNN-derived burrow density maps with satellite-derived vegetation conditions may help identify recent colony abandonment, despite ongoing presence of burrows.

Colony size buffers interactions between neonicotinoid exposure and cold stress in bumblebees.

Social bees are critical for supporting biodiversity, ecosystem function and crop yields globally. Colony size is a key ecological trait predicted to drive sensitivity to environmental stressors and may be especially important for species with annual cycles of sociality, such as bumblebees. However, there is limited empirical evidence assessing the effect of colony size on sensitivity to environmental stressors or the mechanisms underlying these effects. Here, we examine the relationship between colony size and sensitivity to environmental stressors in bumblebees. We exposed colonies at different developmental stages briefly (2 days) to a common neonicotinoid (imidacloprid) and cold stress, while quantifying behaviour of individuals. Combined imidacloprid and cold exposure had stronger effects on both thermoregulatory behaviour and long-term colony growth in small colonies. We find that imidacloprid's effects on behaviour are mediated by body temperature and spatial location within the nest, suggesting that social thermoregulation provides a buffering effect in large colonies. Finally, we demonstrate qualitatively similar effects in size-manipulated microcolonies, suggesting that group size per se, rather than colony age, drives these patterns. Our results provide evidence that colony size is critical in driving sensitivity to stressors and may help elucidate mechanisms underlying the complex and context-specific impacts of pesticide exposure.

Rampant asexual reproduction and limited dispersal in a mangrove population of the coral Porites divaricata.

Corals are critical to marine biodiversity. Reproduction and dispersal are key to their resilience, but rarely quantified in nature. Exploiting a unique system-a fully censused, longitudinally characterized, semi-isolated population inhabiting mangroves-we used 2bRAD sequencing to demonstrate that rampant asexual reproduction most likely via parthenogenesis and limited dispersal enable the persistence of a natural population of thin-finger coral (Porites divaricata). Unlike previous studies on coral dispersal, knowledge of colony age and location enabled us to identify plausible parent-offspring relationships within multiple clonal lineages and develop tightly constrained estimates of larval dispersal; the best-fitting model indicates dispersal is largely limited to a few metres from parent colonies. Our results explain why this species is adept at colonizing mangroves but suggest limited genetic diversity in mangrove populations and limited connectivity between mangroves and nearby reefs. As P. divaricata is gonochoristic, and parthenogenesis would be restricted to females (whereas fragmentation, which is presumably common in reef and seagrass habitats, is not), mangrove populations likely exhibit skewed sex ratios. These findings suggest that coral reproductive diversity can lead to distinctly different demographic outcomes in different habitats. Thus, coral conservation will require the protection of the entire coral habitat mosaic, and not just reefs.

Reduced parasite burden in feral honeybee colonies

Abstract Bee parasites are the main threat to apiculture and since many parasite taxa can spill over from honeybees (Apis mellifera) to other bee species, honeybee disease management is important for pollinator conservation in general. It is unknown whether honeybees that escaped from apiaries (i.e. feral colonies) benefit from natural parasite‐reducing mechanisms like swarming or suffer from high parasite pressure due to the lack of medical treatment. In the latter case, they could function as parasite reservoirs and pose a risk to the health of managed honeybees (spillback) and wild bees (spillover). We compared the occurrence of 18 microparasites among managed (N = 74) and feral (N = 64) honeybee colony samples from four regions in Germany using qPCR. We distinguished five colony types representing differences in colony age and management histories, two variables potentially modulating parasite prevalence. Besides strong regional variation in parasite communities, parasite burden was consistently lower in feral than in managed colonies. The overall number of detected parasite taxa per colony was 15% lower and Trypanosomatidae, chronic bee paralysis virus, and deformed wing viruses A and B were less prevalent and abundant in feral colonies than in managed colonies. Parasite burden was lowest in newly founded feral colonies, intermediate in overwintered feral colonies and managed nucleus colonies, and highest in overwintered managed colonies and hived swarms. Our study confirms the hypothesis that the natural mode of colony reproduction and dispersal by swarming temporally reduces parasite pressure in honeybees. We conclude that feral colonies are unlikely to contribute significantly to the spread of bee diseases. There is no conflict between the conservation of wild‐living honeybees and the management of diseases in apiculture.