Commercial Bumble colonies for research?

[Kimberly N. Russell]

Hi All!

I just got a last-minute request to consult on a USDA grant that is proposing to use commercial bumblebee colonies to study the impact of pesticide “drift” from agricultural orchards on native bees. As I understand it, they want to place colonies within the potential “drift” zone and then have controls in similar habitats further away, to compare colony health.

This is very much outside of my area of exptertise, so I wanted a quick consult with the Beeple about the basic concept. I know commercial bumblebee nests are generally frowned upon and can cause interference with wild bumbles (not to mention disease spread, etc.), but in the context of a project like this, does it make sense? Has anyone used purchased colonies for research? What species are available? If you are willing to share your experiences, I’d appreciate it. Feel free to e-mail me directly.

Thanks,
Kim
*******************************
Dr. Kimberly N. Russell (she/her/hers)

Undergraduate Program Director
Associate Professor of Teaching
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources
Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Office: 124 ENR Building
Phone: 848 932 9383
e-mail: kimberly...@rutgers.edu
web: https://knrussellbeeteam.com
https://krussell-rutgersuniversity.youcanbook.me
*******************************

[Sam Droege]

Kim

A couple of problems present.  

Are the bumble bees free to forage where they want?  I would presume so since containment would be tricky. So, this then presents the problem in that the bumble bees may be outside the main orchard, but what is keeping them from foraging in the orchard (I also presume that the pesticide application is not during bloom...) on the weeds and other bloom within, or, alternatively, travel to some distant tasty patch of flowers that is no where near the drift zone?  Bumble bees have very large foraging distance capacities...and I can't see this as being a precise tool.

I see problems with caging bees during a spray event too.  The netting used to contain the bees may also reduce the amount of drift into the cage.  Easy enough to correct for using spray cards in and outside the cage, however.  

sam

Eclogue for an Extractive Economy

Each day I think this will be the last

warbler. With the seasons confused,

these small birds stay longer and longer

to starve. Wrapped in the long cord

of its vine, I eat a fox grape to darken

my mouth. An itinerant word flees,

a bracelet of language fastened

to the lone deer the neighbor shot

and quartered. Like a white-footed mouse

burrowing beneath snow, the stone in my sister's

body opens to infection. The doctor diagnoses

the shadow and buries it underground

to hold the poison.

The geologist also seeks

what's imprisoned. All around us pump jacks

and the sounds of new wells being drilled.

The derrickman ignores what happens

when fossils are dislodged and scattered.

Where the mountain was cut to the ground

there's nothing to hold back the flood.

The last year of his life my father struggled

to breathe. I missed the hour of his death

and woke to blood sopping the pillow.

I pull on my boots before dawn. The elevator

cage clanks as it descends the shaft. Without

much light, its impossible to see

where the sea used to be.

           - Todd Davis

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[Russel Barsh]

Kim --

My lab is currently conducting "pesticide footprint" research investigating the ecosystem-scale dispersal effects of pesticides e.g. on herbivores eating vegetation with spray residues, and insectivores eating insects that received sublethal doses of aerosolized pesticides. Many surprises--that should not really be surprises--like finding hummingbirds affected by the use of aerosolized backyard pesticide products. We have thought about the kind of study you describe and rejected it: too many uncontrolled variables.

It seems to me the operative variable in the proposed bumblebee study is distance from the point of application. There are models of aerosol drift that can be used to predict the concentration shadow of a biocide application, and I would think that a controlled "indoor" experiment with variable doses of specific pesticides would yield more valid data than an outdoor one, considering that -- as Sam has already noted -- the bees would need to be contained anyway to be able to control for where they actually foraged, which would affect the dose of pesticide received by each individual bee. And releasing more commercial bumbles into the environment is not something I would wish to see, unless it could show significant scientific benefits over other methods.

Another question I would have is, whether the test-site orchard is the only point of pesticide application in the vicinity -- say, 2-3 km? Can the researcher control for multiple sources of aerosol pesticide drift in the neighborhood? I am put in mind of a pilot study I conducted a few years ago on pesticide accumulation in bats, as measured in fecal pellets. The highest residue concentrations we found were in a colony located on a large (40+ acres) organic farm that had not used biocides for decades. The farmers were stumped by how their bat colony could be so heavily dosed with pesticides (pyrethroids, in this case, which tend to degrade fairly rapidly). We eventually identified a farm about 1 km away that was rumored (but did not admit) to spraying their trees. Without a map of pesticide use in the whole foraging range of a bat or bee colony, it would be impossible to use distance from the study orchard as a proxy for dose. 

We've tried measuring pesticide residues on pollen grains (inside flowers, and on bees) as a way of estimating the dispersal of pesticides. My inclination would be to measure the actual pesticide shadow of the orchard from residues in pollens or leaves to calibrate a dispersal model -- then expose captive bees to those doses via controlled feeding to evaluate behavioral and physiological consequences.

One question in the back of my mind. What pesticide is being applied to that orchard, and in what formulation? The drift pattern, stickiness and persistence of different chemical species and formulations (especially formulations with and without surfactants and microparticles) vary greatly as do their potential effects on bees and other fauna. Dealing with this variable makes toxicological research very costly in the long run!

Best regards --

Russel.

--

Russel Barsh

Director, KWIAHT

PO Box 415, Lopez Island WA 98261

http://www.kwiaht.org

[Avi Eliyahu]

Personally, I never used commercial bumble colonies, however I know labs in Israel and in the states that use them. Many similar works using honey bee colonies. 

The available species are terrestris and impatiens. It is beneficial in the following aspects:

1. Colonies from insectories comes with a similar background. This fact help reducing noise in the experiments. I would even suggest that sampling from each colony will occur either before and after the experiment to show differences. 

2. About the interaction with the wild bees - this interaction happens even without this experiment as commercial bumble colonies are used for pollination in many crops. 

Bottom line - for me it is totally makes sense. 

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