Bees and toxic chemicals

Bees can suffer serious effects from toxic chemicals in their environments.^{[citation needed]} These include various synthetic chemicals, particularly insecticides, as well as a variety of naturally occurring chemicals from plants, such as ethanol resulting from the fermentation of organic materials.^{[citation needed]} Bee intoxication can result from exposure to ethanol from fermented nectar, ripe fruits, and manmade and natural chemicals in the environment.^{[citation needed]}

The effects of alcohol on bees are sufficiently similar to the effects of alcohol on humans^{[failed verification]} that honey bees have been used as models of human ethanol intoxication.^{[citation needed]} The honey produced by bees from these toxic nectars can be poisonous if consumed by humans.^{[citation needed]}In addition, natural processes can introduce toxic substances into honey produced from nontoxic nectar.

Ethanol

Effects of intoxication

John Cumming ^{[further explanation needed]}described the effect of alcohol intoxication on honey bees as early as an 1864 publication on beekeeping.^[1]^{[page needed]}

When bees become intoxicated from ethanol consumption or poisoned with other chemicals.^[vague] their balance is affected.^{[citation needed]} Researchers at Oklahoma State University have put inebriated honey bees on running wheels in shuttle-boxes with a stimulus to get them to move. They found that the bees moved less when exposed to higher ethanol levels.^[2]

An intoxicated bee often extends its proboscis.^{[citation needed]} Inebriated bees spend more time flying.^{[citation needed]} If a bee is sufficiently intoxicated, it becomes unable to walk.^{[citation needed]} Inebriated bees typically have many more flying accidents.^{[citation needed]} Some bees that consume ethanol become too inebriated to find their way back to the hive, and die as a result.^{[failed verification]} Bozic et al. (2006) found that alcohol consumption by honeybees disrupts foraging and social behaviors, and has some similar effects to poisoning with insecticides^{[further explanation needed]}.^[3] An experiment on Africanised honey bees was terminated after 5 hours after subjects exposed to ethanol became dangerously aggressive. ^[4]

Bees as ethanol inebriation models

One study suggested that bee inebriation models may be valuable for understanding vertebrate ethanol intoxication, given how insect and vertebrate nervous systems are similar.^[5]

Bees were fed ethanol solutions and their behavior was observed.^[2] Researchers placed the bees in harnesses then fed them varying concentrations of alcohol in into sugar solutions.^{[failed verification]}^[6] Tests of locomotion, foraging, social interaction and aggressiveness were performed; functioning is impaired much as in humans.^{[failed verification]}The interaction of bees with antabuse (disulfiram, a treatment for alcoholism) has been tested.

Bee exposure to other toxic and inebriating chemicals

Synthetic chemicals

. ^{[failed verification]}In France, the Ministry of Agriculture commissioned an expert group to study the intoxicating and sometimes fatal effects of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides used in agriculture on bees.^[7] Researchers at the Bee Research Institute and the Department of Food Chemistry and Analysis in the Czech Republic have pondered^[vague] the intoxicating effects of various chemicals used to treat winter rapeseed crops.^[8] Romania suffered an acute case bee intoxication and mortality from deltamethrin in 2002.^[9] The United States Environmental Protection Agency has published standards for testing chemicals for bee intoxication.

Natural compounds

Detzel and Wink (1993) published an extensive review of 63 types of plant allelochemicals and their effects on bees.^{[citation needed]} 39 chemical compounds repelled bees (primarily alkaloids, coumarins, and saponins), while three terpene compounds attracted bees.^{[citation needed]} They reported that 17 out of 29 allelochemicals are toxic at some levels (especially alkaloids, saponins, cardiac glycosides and cyanogenic glycosides)^{[failed verification]}

Various plants have pollen toxic to honey bees, in some cases killing the adults,^{[citation needed]} as in Toxicoscordion; in other cases weakening the brood, as in Heliconia.^{[citation needed]} Other plants with toxic pollen include Spathodea campanulata and Ochroma lagopus.^{[citation needed]} Both the pollen and nectar of the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) are toxic to honeybees.

Bee inebriation in pollination

Some plants rely on using intoxicating chemicals to produce inebriated bees, and use this inebriation as part of their reproductive strategy.^{[citation needed]} One plant that may do this is the South American bucket orchid (Coryanthes sp.), an epiphyte.^{[citation needed]} The bucket orchid attracts male euglossine bees with its scent, derived from a variety of aromatic compounds.Assessment: ^{[failed verification]}^{[citation needed]} The bees store these compounds in specialized spongy pouches inside their swollen hind legs, as they appear to use the scent (or derivatives thereof) in order to attract females.^{[citation needed]} The flower is constructed in such a way as to make the surface almost impossible to cling to, with smooth, downward-pointing hairs; the bees commonly slip and fall into the fluid in the bucket, and the only navigable route out is a narrow, constricting passage that either glues a "pollinium" (a pollen sack) on their body (if the flower has not yet been visited) or removes any pollinium that is there (if the flower has already been visited). The passageway constricts after a bee has entered, and holds it there for a few minutes, allowing the glue to dry and securing the pollinium. It has been suggested that this process may involve inebriation^[vague] of the bees.^[10]

Van der Pijl and Dodson (1966) observed that bees of the genera Eulaema and Xylocopa exhibit symptoms of inebriation^{[failed verification]} after consuming nectar from the orchids Sobralia violacea and Sobralia rosea.^[11]^[12]Toxic honey

Alkaloids present in some plants affect honey made from their nectar in different ways.^{[citation needed]} ' Nectar from plant genus Coriaria produces honey containing a toxin, tutin.Morphine-containing honey has been reported in areas where opium poppy cultivation is widespread.^{[dubious – discuss]} Tecoma stans is a nontoxic plant, but honey from its flowers is poisonous.^{[dubious – discuss]}^[13]^[14][failed verification] Plants including Rhododendron and heathers (Ericaceae) produce the neurotoxin grayanotoxin.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ Cumming, John (1864). Bee-keeping, by 'The Times' bee-master. p. 144. bee intoxication. ^{[page needed]}
^ ^a ^b Abramson, Charles I.; Stone, Sherril M.; Ortez, Richard A.; Luccardi, Alessandra; Vann, Kyla L.; Hanig, Kate D.; Rice, Justin (August 2000). "The Development of an Ethanol Model Using Social Insects I: Behavior Studies of the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera L.)". Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 24 (8): 1153–1166. doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2000.tb02078.x. PMID 10968652.
^ Bozic, Janko; Abramson, Charles I.; Bedencic, Mateja (April 2006). "Reduced ability of ethanol drinkers for social communication in honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica Poll.)". Alcohol. 38 (3): 179–183. doi:10.1016/j.alcohol.2006.01.005. PMID 16905444.
^ Abramson, Charles I.; Place, Aaron J.; Aquino, Italo S.; Fernandez, Andrea (June 2004). "Development of an ethanol model using social insects: IV. Influence of ethanol on the aggression of Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera L.)". Psychology Reports. 94 (3 Pt 2): 1107–1115. doi:10.2466/pr0.94.3c.1107-1115. PMID 15362379. S2CID 24341827.
^ Sandeman, David (3 August 1999). "Homology and Convergence in Vertebrate and Invertebrate Nervous Systems". Naturwissenschaften. 86 (8): 378–387. Bibcode:1999NW.....86..378S. doi:10.1007/s001140050637. PMID 10481825.
^ Intoxicated Honey Bees May Clue Scientists Into Drunken Human Behavior, Science Daily, October 25, 2004
^ Recent Issues Related to Bee Troubles in France Archived 2007-10-04 at the Wayback Machine, J.N. Tasei, report to International Apis Health Assessment Committee (IAHAC), Bologna, Italy, May 6, 2004. This report included the results of a study of the toxic effects on bees of the seed dressings imidacloprid and fipronil.
^ Kamler, František; Titěra, Dalibor; Piškulová, Jiřina; Hajšlová, Jana; Maštovská, Kateřina (2003). "Intoxication of honeybees on chemical treated winter rape: problem of its verification" (PDF). Bulletin of Insectology. 56 (1): 125–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-23.
^ Nica, Daniela; Bianu, Elisabeta; Chioveanu, Gabriela (2004). "A case of acute intoxication with deltamethrin in bee colonies in Romania" (PDF). Apiacta. 39: 71–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27.
^ Jolivet, Pierre (1998). Interrelationship Between Insects and Plants. CRC Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-57444-052-2. The first hymenopteran to visit has difficulties coping with the rostrellum but the later ones to arrive easily escape, soaked, drunk, and often having completed their pollinating function.
^ Cingel, Nelis A. (2001). An atlas of orchid pollination: America, Africa, Asia and Australia. CRC Press. ISBN 978-90-5410-486-5.
^ Van der Pijl, Leendert; Dodson, Calaway H. (1966). Orchid Flowers Their Pollination and Evolution. University of Miami Press. ISBN 978-0-87024-069-0.
^ Anand, Mukul; Basavaraju, R. (January 2021). "A review on phytochemistry and pharmacological uses of Tecoma stans (L.) Juss. ex Kunth". Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 265 113270. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2020.113270. PMID 32822823.
^ Pallavi, K.; Vishnavi, B.; Mamatha; Prakash, K. Vanitha; Amruthapriyanka, A. (2014). "Phytochemical investigation and anti-microbial activity of Tecoma stans". World Journal of Pharmaceutical Research. 3 (2): 2070–2083.