Honey bees are affected by a variety of factors, so they have to be thoroughly managed according to their lifestyle. The activity of the honey bee foragers represent an important parameter of the hive state. Here, the real-time and automatic monitoring system using dual infrared sensors was applied for counting the foraging activity of honey bees based on ICT. According to this study, this system is very accurate with a relative error of 3.98% / 4.43% compared to manual counting through video analysis. This system showed the scalability of the system through the internal and external temperature sensors connected through the main board and BLE module. Furthermore, the data measured through this system for one month were analyzed, the monthly average foraging activity and the number of lost foragers were measured (1.88% of outgoing bees), and at the same time, the foraging patterns according to the changes of temperature and time were analyzed. This study suggests that the development of apicultural, scientific and educational materials with more powerful real-time monitoring tools through expansion of a complex monitoring system and big data accumulation.

Sacbrood virus (SBV) caused significant colony collapse in Korean Apis cerana. Considering that hygienic behavior in honey bees confers colony-level resistance against brood diseases, we utilized this trait for selecting A. cerana colonies. In addition, the brood survival rate was evaluated after colonies were SBV-inoculated. Over four selective generations, dead brood removal and brood survivorship in selected colonies were higher than those in the unselected colonies (P < 0.01, 99.3 vs. 89.9% for removal of pin-killed pupae; P < 0.01, 99.0 vs. 63.9% for removal of SBV-killed larvae; and P < 0.01, 70.0 vs. 9.2% for brood survivorship). Following SBV-inoculation, selected colonies showed an increase in the number of surviving pupae and adults, whereas unselected colonies collapsed mostly. Our results confirm the feasibility of selecting SBV-resistant A. cerana.

A wireless sensor network is emerging technology and intelligent wireless communication paradigm that is dynamically aware of its surrounding environment. It is also able to respond to it in order to achieve reliable and efficient communication. The dynamical cognition capability and environmental adaptability rely on organizing dynamical networks effectively. However, optimally clustering the cognitive wireless sensor networks is an NP-complete problem. The objective of this paper is to develop an optimal sensor network design for maximizing the performance. This proposed Ranking Artificial Bee Colony (RABC) is developed based on Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) with ranking strategy. The ranking strategy can make the much better solutions by combining the best solutions so far and add these solutions in the solution population when applying ABC. RABC is designed to adapt to topological changes to any network graph in a time. We can minimize the total energy dissipation of sensors to prolong the lifetime of a network to balance the energy consumption of all nodes with robust optimal solution. Simulation results show that the performance of our proposed RABC is better than those of previous methods (LEACH, LEACH-C, and etc.) in wireless sensor networks. Our proposed method is the best for the 100 node-network example when the Sink node is centrally located.

Honey bee, Apis mellifera L., have been widely used as a model organism for biological science because of its highly developed sociality, specialized labor division and passive population management. In order to examine the expression patterns of genes putatively involved in social development in honey bee, quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) that has been widely used to investigate the expression level of target gene can be used in honey bee study. However, the selection and validation of optimal reference genes is a crucial step prior to running qRT-PCR. In the present study, therefore, the seasonal expression stability of five candidate reference genes in the abdomen of forager and nurse was investigated using three programs (geNorm, NormFinder and BestKeeper), and selected reference genes were validated by the normalization of expression level of vg encoding vitellogenin. Although three programs revealed slightly different gene stability values, overall the combination of two genes (rpS18 and gapdh encoding ribosomal protein S18 and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, respectively) was resulted in the most suitable use for normalization of the target gene in forager. However, a single gene, either rpL32 or rpS18 in the nurse or either rpL32, rpS18, or gapdh in the comparison between foragers and nurses, were suggested to be applied for normalization of seasonal and labor-specific gene expression by qRT-PCR.

Bee venom, which serves as a weapon to defend the colony from predator attacks, induces an immediate local inflammatory response that causes acute redness and swelling at the site of the sting. This venom-induced inflammation is a rapid anti-predatory defense strategy of the bee against vertebrate predators. Although acute inflammation by venom from venomous arthropods, including bees, is a typical response, how venom acutely elicits inflammatory responses remains unknown. Here, we identify a novel mechanism underlying acute inflammation and provide a rationale for the presence of superoxide dismutase (SOD3) in bee venom. In mouse models, paradoxically, SOD3 in bee venom (bvSOD3) acts as a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-based harm-inducing system to promote acute inflammation. Exogenous bvSOD3 rapidly induced overproduction of H2O2 through endogenously produced superoxide by venom components, such as melittin and phospholipase A2 (PLA2), which then upregulated the expression of proinflammatory genes and promoted the acute inflammatory response. Furthermore, a more severe noxious effect by bvSOD3 elevated a type 2 immune response, and bvSOD3 immunization protected against bvSOD3-mediated toxicity. Our findings that bvSOD3 promotes an acute inflammatory response and induces a protective immune response against inflammation may offer a new approach in venom therapy/immunotherapy.

The honey bee soluble acetylcholinesterase 1 (AmAChE1) is overexpressed under the overwintering and brood rearing-suppressed conditions. To investigate the role of AmAChE1 in regulating acetylcholine (ACh) titer, ACh concentrations both in the head (neuronal) and abdomen (non-neuronal) were analyzed. ACh titer was significantly lower in both tissues of worker bees under the overwintering and brood rearing-suppressed conditions compared to control bees. The expression levels of another two factors that regulate ACh titer, choline acetyltransferase (AmAChT) and acetylcholinesterase 2 (AmAChE2), were not altered as judged by qPCR and native PAGE, suggesting that the lower ACh titer was mainly regulated by AmAChE1. For precise verification of AmAChE1 as an ACh titer regulator, honey bees were put under brood rearing-suppressed condition to induce AmAChE1 and injected AmAChE1 dsRNA to knock down the gene. The ACh titer of AmAChE1-knocked down honey bees was 1.9 and 2.6 folds higher than that of control bees in head and abdomen, respectively. Taken together, in spite of its extremely low catalytic activity, the overexpression of AmAChE1 is likely to be related with the low level of ACh homeostasis, perhaps via ACh sequestration, under brood rearingsuppressed condition, and likely induce metabolic changes through ACh receptors-related pathways.

Lately, CRISPR-Cas9 has become one of the most essential tools to understand gene’s function. In the honeybee, however, the application of CRISPR technology has been hindered by various factors leading to very few reports of success in genome editing. Among these, collection of honeybee embryos for microinjection has been a time-consuming procedure, mainly limiting the applicability of the genome editing technique to honeybees. To improve the drawbacks of the conventional plastic plug-based system, we have developed a film-assisted honeybee embryo collection system (FECS) using transparent film as a detachable bottom layer. In this new system, eggs are laid on the detachable film surface and collected in a batch, and thus no additional alignment is required for microinjectoin. As the film can be easily replaced with in a few seconds, embryo collection can be repeated continuously after a single caging of a queen. Also, unlike conventional plug-based systems, the new system utilizes 100% of the eggs laid by the queen, thereby increases the yield three times in theory. The main unit of the system can be printed with ordinary SLA/DLP type 3D printer and the stl file for 3D printing will be distributed online.

한국에서 화분매개곤충으로서 벌목 그 중 특히 꽃벌들의 다양성은 매우 중요하다. 특히 꿀벌을 제이한 야생꽃벌들은 과수와 같은 작물에서는 물론이고 국내 식물의 화분매개를 통하여 식물의 번식과 종다양성을 지켜나갈 수 있도록 하는 중요한 자원이다. 하지만 최근 화분매개를 담당하는 야생의 꽃벌의 수와 종이 급격하게 줄어들고 있다. 지리산, 설악산과 같은 중요 보존지역에서 조차 화분매개곤충의 개체수와 종수가 급격하게 줄어들고 있으며, 서울의 길동생태공원과 같은 근린 녹지에서는 더욱 가파르게 종수와 개체수가 줄어들고 있어 우려가 된다. 그 원인으로는 여러 가지 문제점이 지적되고 있으며, 그 중 몇가지를 예를 들어보겠다. 우선 녹지의 개발이다. 꽃벌류의 주서식지는 숲 가장자리인 경우가 많으며, 이 지역은 개발 압력으로부터 매우 취약하여 리조트나 인공공원으로 바뀌면서 서식지 자체가 사라진다. 20여년전의 많은 종을 확인할 수 있던 제주 유채밭이나 지리산 주변, 설악산 주변 등의 지역에서도 이제는 거의 꽃벌들이 사라져가고 있다. 두 번째는 돌발해충의 방제를 위해 사용되는 살충제의 영향으로 도시 근교에서 전체적인 곤충의 수가 감소하고 있지만 꽃벌들은 더 밀도가 감소한 것처럼 느껴진다. 마지막으로 양봉벌의 증가로 체격이 크고 수가 많은 꿀벌의 영향으로 야생꽃벌의 수가 줄고 또한 질병 등의 전파로 질병에 취약해질 수 있다.