Accelerated abdominal lipid depletion from pesticide treatment alters honey bee pollen foraging strategy, but not onset, in worker honey bees.

ABSTRACT: Honey bee abdominal lipids decline with age, a change thought to be associated with the onset of foraging behavior. Stressors, such as pesticides, may accelerate this decline by mobilizing internal lipid to facilitate the stress response. Whether bees with stressor-induced accelerated lipid loss vary from controls in both the onset of foraging and nutritional quality of collected pollen is not fully understood. We asked whether stressors affect foraging behavior through the depletion of abdominal lipid, and whether stress-induced lipid depletion causes bees to forage earlier and for fattier pollen. We tested this by treating newly emerged bees with one of two pesticides, pyriproxyfen (a juvenile hormone analog) and spirodiclofen (a fatty acid synthesis disruptor), that may affect energy ho

SUBMITTER: Elizabeth Deeter M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10120071 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature