Nicholas Calderone

Cornell University | CU · Department of Entomology

In the US, the cultivated area (hectares) and production (tonnes) of crops that require or benefit from insect pollination (directly dependent crops: apples, almonds, blueberries, cucurbits, etc.) increased from 1992, the first year in this study, through 1999 and continued near those levels through 2009; aggregate yield (tonnes/hectare) remained u...

Individual crops for 2002 and 2007: supporting text for “Insect pollinated crops, insect pollinators and US agriculture: Trend analysis of aggregate data for the period 1992–2009.” (PDF)

Number of managed colonies of honey bees in the United States. Predicted values (blue) include adjustments for serial autocorrelation and are the same as the predicted – structural values (also blue) based solely on the structural elements of the model. (TIF)

Update for individual crops for 2010: supporting text for “Insect pollinated crops, insect pollinators and US agriculture: Trend analysis of aggregate data for the period 1992–2009.” (PDF)

Number of managed colonies required to meet current recommendations for pollination. Data includes recommendations for all crops except cotton lint. Predicted values (blue) include adjustments for serial autocorrelation and are the same as the predicted – structural values (also blue) based solely on the structural elements of the model. (TIF)

Alfalfa production: supporting text for “Insect pollinated crops, insect pollinators and US agriculture: Trend analysis of aggregate data for the period 1992–2009.” (PDF)

Decline in number of honey bee colonies and the pollinator shortage: supporting text for “Insect pollinated crops, insect pollinators and US agriculture: Trend analysis of aggregate data for the period 1992–2009.” (PDF)

Predicted values for the number of managed colonies and tonnes of directly dependent crops. DD = directly dependent. (TIF)

Predicted values for the number of managed colonies and hectares of directly dependent crops. DD = directly dependent. (TIF)

Predicted values for the number of managed colonies and yield of directly dependent crops. DD = directly dependent. (TIF)

The association between the age of a worker honey bee (Apis melliferd) and her behavior is generally believed to be the result of an innate developmental process. An alternative model, called foraging for work, explains this association as being due to old and young workers being in functionally different parts of the nest as a result of their havi...

Mite-Away II, a recently-registered product with a proprietary formulation of formic acid, was evaluated under field conditions in commercial apiaries in upstate New York (USA) for the fall control of Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman in colonies of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Ambient temperatures during the treatment period were in the low...

We evaluated the performance of six named types of package honey bees, Apis mellifera L (Hymenoptera: Apidae), from four commercial producers. We examined the effects of levels of the parasitic mite Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman, the endoparasitic mite Acarapis woodi (Rennie), the gut parasite Nosema (species not determined) in samples from...

To replace deceased colonies or to increase the colony numbers, beekeepers often purchase honey bees, Apis mellifera L., in a package, which is composed of 909-1,364 g (2-3 lb) of worker bees and a mated queen. Packages are typically produced in warm regions of the United States in spring and shipped throughout the United States to replace colonies...

The honeybee, Apis mellifera, dance language, used to communicate the location of profitable food resources, is one of the most versatile forms of nonprimate communication. Karl von Frisch described this communication system in terms of two distinct dances: (1) the round dance, which indicates the presence of a desirable food source close to the hi...

Honey bees (Apis mellifera Linnaeus 1758) use a complex dance behaviour that encodes the distance and direction to profitable food sources, but these dances do not contain precise directional information for nearby (<700 m) food sources. The reason for this imprecision has been the subject of recent debate. Some have suggested that imprecision with...

The methods discussed in this fact sheet were developed and evaluated in the northeastern US. Drone brood removal will benefit beekeepers throughout the US; however, formic acid and other miticides acting as fumigants work best in areas where colonies are broodless or nearly broodless for at least four weeks during the fall or winter. When a colony...

The parasitic mite Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman reproduces on the immature stage of the honeybee, Apis mellifera L. Mites are found more often on drone brood than worker brood and only infrequently on queen brood. We investigated the chemical basis for the low incidence of mites on queen brood. V. destructor mites were deterred by a crude e...

The efficacy of drone brood removal for the management of Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman in colonies of the honey bee, A. mellifera L., was evaluated. Colonies were treated with CheckMite+ in the fall of 2002. The following spring, quantities of bees and brood were equalized, but colonies were not retreated. The brood nest of each colony cons...

Varroa destructor is a parasitic mite of A. mellifera. Female mites reproduce on both drone and worker brood; but they are found 5–9 times more often on drone brood. We examined larval tending by brood nest bees to determine if this behavior could provide an explanation for these differences. We observed workers tending worker and drone larvae in t...

We collected mites on boards coated with Vaseline; then, Vaseline, mites and debris were removed and solvent processed. Three weights were obtained for each sample: (1) weight after processing (pre-cleaned weight = Wpre); (2) weight after removing most remaining contaminants (partially cleaned weight = Wpar); and (3) weight after removing all remai...

This study examined how a honey bee colony supplied additional labor for a foraging task, pollen collection, when the demand for this task was increased. When we experimentally raised a colony's pollen need from one day to the next, we found that the colony boosted the labor devoted to pollen collecting (mea- sured in terms of the number of pollen...

We examined the distribution of Varroa destructor on worker and queen brood in colonies of A. mellifera. With both worker and queen hosts present, the mite prevalence value for worker hosts was 75.0 ± 4.0% (lsmean ± SE), compared to 5.1 ± 4.0% for queen hosts (P < 0.0001). We also examined the re- sponse of mites to cuticular extracts of 5th instar...

Numerous studies have documented that honeybee colonies can rapidly adjust the number of foragers collecting pollen in response to changes in quantities of brood, pollen and nectar in the nest. However, few studies have examined the behaviour of individual pollen foragers while in the nest between trips. Thus, little is known about how a pollen for...

Summary: Colonies of social insects coordinate many activities in response to changing colony needs. One example is the maintenance of pollen stores in the nest by honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). To adjust pollen intake in an appropriate manner, individual foragers must assess the colony's need for pollen. This assessment could be done either direc...

Varroa destructor is a parasitic mite of the honey bee species Apis cerana Fabr. and A. mellifera L. Mature females reproduce on the immature stages of their hosts, producing more viable female offspring on drone hosts than on worker hosts. Thus, immature drones are more likely to be infested with mites than immature workers. To investigate the hyp...

Female mites of the genus Varroa reproduce on the immature stages of Apis cerana F. and A. mellifera L. Mites are found more often in drone brood than worker brood, and while evolutionary explanations for this bias are well supported, the proximate mechanisms are not known. In one experiment, we verified that the proportion of hosts with one or mor...

New formulations of formic acid and thymol, both individually and in combination with various essential oils, were compared with Apistan to determine their efficacy as fall treatments for control of Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans), a parasitic mite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Percent mite mortality in colonies treated with 300 ml of 65% formic...

The Varroa mite infestation level of honey bee, Apis mellifera, worker larvae reared in individual raised cells was 6-fold higher than in the adjacent six cells surrounding them; this differential infestation rate is similar to published values of higher mite infestations of drone cells compared to worker cells. Infestation levels in control cells...

Six subsampling methods for estimating the number of Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans) mites on sticky-boards were evaluated. Each method was based on stratified random sampling and was evaluated on 3 groups of boards: those with an undetermined number of mites, those with >500 mites, and those with >1,000 mites. A working compromise between efficiency a...

Formic acid and Apistan were compared as fall treatments for Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans), a parasitic mite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Treatment with Apistan resulted in an average mite mortality of 98%, whereas treatment with formic acid resulted in an average 56% mortality. Mortality was not correlated with the level of mite infestation f...

Formic acid, a thymol-based blend of natural products, and Apistan (tau-fluvalinate) were compared as fall control agents for Varroa jacobsoni Oudemans, a parasitic mite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Mite mortality averaged 99% in colonies receiving Apistan, 70% in those receiving the thymol blend, 51% in those receiving formic acid, and 33%...

Essential oils and essential oil components offer an attractive alternative to synthetic acaricides for the control of Varroa jacobsoni. They are generally inexpensive and most pose few health risks. Terpenes (mainly monoterpenes) are the main components of essential oils, comprising about 90 % of the total. More than 150 essential oils and compone...

The stimuli and mechanisms mediating host location and host choice by the bee mite, Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans), are currently unknown. It is shown that Varroa can use single clean-air puffs and bee-odour plumes in a wind tunnel as directional cues. Varroa turned nearly straight upwind in response to single 0.1-s puffs of clean air directed at 90°...

Methods for estimating infestation rates of Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans) on adult honey bees, Apis mellifera (L.), are not well developed. We calculated 3 measures of infestation in samples of adult bees from New York State and Washington, DC: (1) M/V, the ratio of the number of mites (M) to a constant volume of bees (V); (2) M/B, the ratio of the n...

Workers in most insect societies exhibit a division of labor known as age polyethism, so named because workers tend to perform different tasks at different times in their lives. The most common explanation for this phenomenon involves a weak causal link between a worker's age and its occupation. However, available estimates of age effects are gener...

Natural products were evaluated as control agents for the tracheal mite Acarapis woodi (Rennie) and the Varroa mite Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans) in colonies of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Test materials consisted of 1:1 (wt:wt) blends of thymol with cineole, citronellal, or linalool. Two, 25.0-g applications (rate 1) of each blend were applied...

Movements of the parasitic honey bee mite,Varroa jacobsoni (Oud.) were monitored in several assays as they moved among adult host honey bees,Apis mellifera. We examined the propensity of mites to leave their hosts and to move onto new bee hosts. We also examined their preference for bees of different age and hive function. Mites were standardized b...

Two models of temporal polyethism in the honey bee were evaluated. The developmental-programme model asserts a causal relationship between age and task performance. The foraging-for-work model asserts that this relationship is an epiphenomenon associated with a self-organizing system. The effect of a worker's pre-foraging environment on task select...

Two models of temporal polyethism in the honey bee were evaluated. The developmental-programme model asserts a causal relationship between age and task performance. The foraging-for-work model asserts that this relationship is an epiphenomenon associated with a self-organizing system. The effect of a worker's pre-foraging environment on task select...

Two natural product treatments were evaluated in field trials as control agents for the parasitic mite, Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans), in colonies of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Eight colonies were treated with a blend of thymol, eucalyptus oil, menthol, and camphor. Eight colonies were treated with linalool. Each treatment was delivered using 4...

Four seed-derived oils were evaluated in field trials as control agents for the parasitic tracheal mite,Acarapis woodi (Rennie), in colonies of the honey bee, Apis mellifera (L.). Seventy-one honey bee colonies infested with the tracheal mite were each assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups or to a control group. Treatments were peanut, soybean, sunfl...

Bactericidal and fungicidal effects of eight plant extracts on the growth of two honeybee pathogens, Bacillus larvae (causative agent of American foulbrood) and Ascosphaera apis (causative agent of chalkbrood), and Bacillus alvei (a secondary invader in European foulbrood), were evaluated. Cinnamon oil completely inhibited the growth of B. larvae a...

The selection of honey-bee tracheal trunks by host-seeking tracheal mites, Acarapis woodi, was examined in 307 samples of worker honey bees. The number of bees with 0, 1, and 2 infested tracheal trunks was determined for each sample and compared to an expected distribution based on the assumption that the probability that a tracheal trunk is infest...

Current sampling methods for estimating infestation rates of tracheal mites in colonies of the honey bee,Apis mellifera, assume that infested bees are randomly distributed and that temporal fluctuations in infestation rates occur homogeneously throughout the colony. We examined these assumptions. Samples of bees were collected from up to five locat...

Recent studies have shown that differences in patterns of task specialization among nestmate honeybee workers (Apis mellifera) can be explained, in part, as a consequence of genotypic variability. Here, we present evidence supporting the hypothesis that an individual's pattern of task specialization is affected not only by her own genotype, but, in...

Demonstrates a genotypic component to variability in those elements of individual behavior necessary for the evolution of the individual and colony-level behavioral phenotype - variability in task specialization and variability in the age-based system of division of labor. A model for individual behavior integrates the effects of variability in ind...

Seasonal colony weight gain (honey production) in the honey bee, Apis mellifera, can be modified by selection. Two-way selection for strains of honey bees exhibiting high or low seasonal colony weight gain was made for 3 generations. In each generation, daughter queens were reared from selected colonies and permitted to mate naturally with unselect...

Recent studies have demonstrated a genotypic component to the division of labor among worker honeybees. However, these studies used artificially-selected strains of bees or colonies derived from queens that were instrumentally inseminated with the semen from very few males. We present evidence for genotypic variability among groups of workers perfo...

The currently accepted model for division of labor in honey bees, Apis mellifera, explains variation in the frequency at which workers perform specific tasks as the result of differences in age and environment. Although well documented, the model is incomplete because it fails to take genotypic variability among workers into account. We show that w...