pan-european assessment, monitoring, and mitigation of stressors on the health of bees

Wild pollinators are a key part of European biodiversity and provide a wide range of benefits to crops, wild plants, and human wellbeing. In Europe and globally, wild pollinators are facing multiple threats, however, the full extent of declines, their complex causes, and the most effective ways to respond to them are not well understood. Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe's capacity to reverse the...

PoshBee coordinator Prof. Mark Brown of Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) participated in an issue of the academic podcast Know Show. The issue, called "How important are bees to society?", offers a rich discussion with Mark on a variety of topics related to PoshBee bee health research, as well as on pollinator policies across Europe. Throughout the episode, he tells the story of PoshBee and the project's place in the overall pollinator protection narrative. Mark...

What evidence is there on the impact of pesticide use on pollinators? How do pesticide policies differ across the globe? These are just some of the questions that will be discussed in a webinar on the policies and legislation on pesticide use hosted by Promote Pollinators in cooperation with FAO. Webinar on the policies and legislation on pesticide use. The webinar is to take place on June 30th at 15:00 CEST. It will focus on policies and legislation on the use of...

A new PoshBee field work video shows the early-spring application of PoshBee samplers on honey bee hives in Cork, Ireland.   The video was created by PoshBee researcher Eleanor Attridge of the Federation of Beekeepers of Ireland Associations (FIBKA), and it demonstrates the application of PoshBee samplers on honey bee hives. The video is kindly provided to PoshBee by Eleanor Attridge and is also uploaded

A new PoshBee video titled "PoshBee Research: Testing effects of pesticide exposure to bees and bee larvae" shows different research techniques performed within the project. PoshBee researcher Piero Onorati presents the different measurements he and his team at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) perform on adult honey bees of the Apis mellifera carnica species and bee larvae to find out the effects on bee health of three categories of agricultural pesticides....

PoshBee PhD student Sara Hellström of the University of Halle participated in two special Youtube videos that are part of an early-career researcher Youtube channel. The videos created by youtuber Palak Lakhani focus on the life of the research that Sara performs within the project and Sara's early-career researcher story as a PoshBee PhD student. The first video focuses on Sara's application and admission as a PhD student in PoshBee. She shared with the audience...

A new data paper published in the One Ecosystem journal called "Monitoring bee health in European agro-ecosystems using wing morphology and fat bodies" provides an extensive dataset of wing morphology and fat body content for the European honeybee (Apis mellifera) and the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) sampled at 128 sites across eight European countries in landscape gradients dominated by two major bee-pollinated crops (apple and oilseed rape), before and after...

PoshBee is improving its tools and aims to maximise the outreach of its scientific results and project developments! Two new surveys conducted by PoshBee aim to gather the opinions of partners and stakeholders in terms of communicating project results through the creation of different reports, databases, and tools for practitioners, as well as reviewing best bee health practices. The first survey aims to find out which are the most useful ways in which the project output can be...

A recent article in the DailyScience magazine (Belgium) titled "The Irresistible Decline of Bees" features an extensive overview of the PoshBee project and its purpose. The article provides information about the research performed within PoshBee, as well as the coordination and communication with various stakeholders, including policy makers such as the European Commission (EC) and the European Food and Safety Agency (EFSA). A bee on a flower. The article presents the...

This update on the progress of PoshBee WP7 was provided by Matthew Allen of Atlantic Pollination. Coming out of winter is a critical time for honeybees. The old bees that clustered during winter to keep warm now face a critical challenge. Do they have enough reserves, not only in stored pollen and nectar, but also in their own bodies, to produce the new generation of young bees? Did they cope with exposure to pathogens and parasites? Are the overwintered queens laying...

A recently published research article investigates behavioral and reproductive endpoints for pesticide exposure risk assessment. The paper called "Pesticide risk assessment in honeybees: Toward the use of behavioral and reproductive performances as assessment endpoints" reviews the biological interests and ecotoxicology measurements of these endpoints with a focus on pesticide exposure effects on honeybees (Apis mellifera). Honeybees. The article investigates into the...

A recent article published in the leading scientific journal, Science, features the expert opinion of PoshBee researchers on the new European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) honey bee pesticide risk assessment. Article "Holistic environmental risk assessment for bees". The authors of the article, all of whom are researchers in PoshBee, point out that such a strategy has been long awaited and it is celebrated. They outline the strategy's advantage compared to current...

A new booklet titled ‘Working Together for Biodiversity: Tales from the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2015-2020’ was published recently to mark the conclusion of the first phase of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan - an initiative founded by Dr. Úna FitzPatrick of the Irish National Biodiversity Data Centre and PoshBee researcher Prof. Jane Stout of Trinity College Dublin. The booklet was launched by the Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform of Ireland, Malcolm...

New bee health tool: How can it fit your needs? PoshBee is developing a new tool which gives a rapid insight into the health of beehives. The studies conducted by the University of Reading aim to gather beekeepers' and growers' attitudes towards new bee health tools for pollination services. The studies are targeting beekeepers and growers from Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. The findings of these surveys will help us support beekeepers...

In light of the travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 PoshBee annual general meeting took place online. Project members and representatives of partner organisations met up online between 12 and 14 January 2021. The three-day long online meeting was marked by insightful presentations, vivid discussions and an overview of the project’s developments and future initiatives. The special interactive online environment provided for the meeting proved to be extremely...

A team of PoshBee researchers lead by Prof. Alexandra-Maria Klein from the University of Freiburg, Germany, performed field and semi-field experiments aiming to measure the effect of chemicals and their interactions with other stressors on bees.   The field experiments were undertaken in an apple orchard near lake Constanz (Germany). The researchers observed honeybees, bombus bees, and mason bees. For the purpose of the semi-field experiments large spaces covered...

    The PoshBee project wishes everybody a prosperous

An article about PoshBee was featured in the November 2020 issue of the Bee Craft magazine. The article titled "Brood day by day: What can we learn?" provides insight on the brood monitoring procedure that is applied in the PoshBee project. Author Matthew Allen of Atlantic Pollination Ltd. describes the process of acquiring comprehensive data on adult and juvenile bee mortality by using image recognition software for monitoring. Within the PoshBee project, the method is used for...

PoshBee wishes you a very happy holiday season and a joyful and prosperous New

An article about PoshBee was featured in the Winter 2020 issue of the Irish Organic Association magazine. The article titled "The Mission of Sustainable Bee Health" presents PoshBee and its main objectives and breakthroughs so far to the auditory of the magazine, which comprises of organic licence holders in Ireland like primary producers, retailers and processors, as well as  policy makers, media, industry, research institutes and relevant stakeholders in food and agriculture....