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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Bee Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #416462
Research Project: Managing Honey Bees Against Disease and Colony Stress

Location: Bee Research Laboratory

Title: Nano Colonies: Rearing honey bee queens and their offspring in small laboratory arenas

Author
item LAMAS, ZACHARY - Orise Fellow
item SOLMUSZ, SERHAT - Ministry Of Agriculture - Turkey
item RYABOV, EUGENE - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item Madella, Shayne
item Corona, Miguel
item Evans, Jay

Submitted to: Heliyon
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/20/2024
Publication Date: 1/30/2025
Citation: Lamas, Z., Solmusz, S., Ryabov, E., Madella, S., Corona, M.V., Evans, J.D. 2025. Nano Colonies: Rearing honey bee queens and their offspring in small laboratory arenas. Heliyon. Article e42042. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42042.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42042

Interpretive Summary: Controlled experiments with honey bees can be done with individual bees or entire colonies. Determining the impacts of disease and stress on members of honey bee colonies is complex, especially when providing meaningful answers for colonies in the field. This methodology describes the use of small colonies consisting of one queen and dozens to hundreds of honey bee workers. The described arenas are stable and it is possible to both raise new bees and monitor the changes in queen production, development and worker survival. This tool can help in the search for solutions to heavy losses observed for the world's primary agricultural pollinator.

Technical Abstract: Honey bees create complex societies of self-organized individuals in intricate colonies. Studies of honey bees are carried out in both the field and the laboratory. However, field research is encumbered by the difficulties of making reliable observations and environmental confounders. Meanwhile, laboratory trials produce data that are not field realistic as they lack key characteristics of a natural colony. Additionally, advances in honey bee research have been hindered without reliable methodology to rear queens in the laboratory. Here we provide a new system to reliably produce queens and worker brood in the laboratory and describe how this system fits with artificial insemination of queens as a step towards a continuous self-contained source of bees. The process creates a bridge between field research and laboratory trials and provides a secure system for contagious or regulated elements while maintaining many of the intrinsic characteristics of a honey bee colony.