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It was 100 years ago that this journal was founded. I could not find a clearer starting sentence than this one, because it summarizes the efforts and special articles planned for this and the next three issues, which make up the centenary volume of Bee World. This is also the reason that all four issues of Bee World in 2019 will occasionally include historic section headings or illustrations to remind us of this centenary, such as the one that appeared in the very first editorial published in 1919.
I invite you to take a look at the cover of Bee World’s first issue. When I look at it, I can smell the old paper and ink, mysteriously some wax and honey, and along with these, the scent of 1919 and the atmosphere that was present when the foundations for Bee World were laid. When brainstorming about the covers for the 100-year anniversary issues, I contacted my good friend, an artist, to produce a series of four covers that capture both the scent of 100 years of history and the subsequent 100 years. Hopefully, those who view our contemporary cover illustrations can smell the Zeitgeist, too. Read more about the artist, Bernadette Moser, and how you can obtain these pieces of art for your own home on page 2 of this issue.
During the recent conferences held in Ghent, Belgium, I had the opportunity to discuss some issues with several readers. I often heard that they preferred to read the longer review articles in Bee World. Vanessa Corby-Harris from the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, Tucson, Arizona, and her 15 colleagues from the USA have provided us with an article about the themes that emerged during a symposium of the Entomological Society of America held in Denver, Colorado at the end of 2017. Their article is not a classic review of honey bee nutrition, as this is available elsewhere, but focuses on the recent research on and open questions about pollinator nutrition at the landscape level. While research is ongoing to define the nutritional requirements of bees, the seasonality of bee forage and nutritional value of the landscapes to bees are currently two of the most important and exciting issues that we need to understand more thoroughly.
The report by Jun-ichi Takahashi from Kyoto Sangyo University and his colleagues is closely related to honey bee nutrition, although it is an extreme case that is not fully understood. It is the second article in Bee World that contains video footage, which can be views if it is read online. The video they provide clearly shows bees frequently visiting a fungus to forage on it. The collection of fungal spores by bees in their corbiculae, similar to pollen, has been reported before, but the current observation clearly shows bees chewing the fruiting fungal bodies with their mandibles. It remains unclear what bees are collecting from this unconventional forage material. Are they driven by the urge to collect water or fungal secretions for nourishment or self-medication?
Ever wanted to go camping with your bees? Not a good idea, and ok, not a good joke. Nimish B. Vyas and Amanda D. Plunkett from the United States report on their experiences when housing two feral honey bee colonies in tents in the Californian Mojave Desert. In contrast to indoor wintering, housing honey bees indoors during the active season is not usually practiced successfully, although such a system could help us answer many research questions. Still, the artifacts and manipulations seem to be stressful for colonies, making such endeavors unsuccessful. Allowing the bees partial free flight, a compromise under these controlled conditions, could help solve this problem.
During its early years, Bee World contained a section dedicated to “Modern Inventions.” I adopted this section heading for the article written by Giulio Loglio and his colleagues. They present a simple DIY device that can easily be built at a very low cost to collect beebread from combs. It can be used by citizen scientists who would like to sample beebread and investigate its botanical origin or conduct pesticide residue analyses, as in the Insignia Project, funded by the European Union, but is probably useful for all beekeepers who want to harvest beebread. Another potential innovation in beekeeping is discussed in the article from Rosa María Licón. She proposes the construction of a device that combines hyperthermia for pest control and ozone treatment for disinfection of hive materials. As this innovative combination yet needs to built, and she is looking for funding, the article can be read as a review of our current knowledge on these two different technologies.
I already mentioned the two conferences, COLOSS and Eurbee, which were held in Belgium last year. Norman Carreck wrote a short report on these two events, which can be found in this issue. For the second time, Bee World is publishing the proceedings of the COLOSS conference to inform our readers about the research presented there in a highly compact way. Thanks to the IBRA, the students who made the best contributions at these two conferences were, among other things, awarded a one-year subscription of Bee World. Congratulations and welcome to our new readers! Mysterious greetings from the editor and IBRA management team are also sent out to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.
With the best wishes to all our readers during the Bee World’s centenary year of 2019,
Editor of Bee World, Institute of Biology, University of Graz, Austria
E-mail: [email protected]https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2535-0280