The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a widely managed crop pollinator that provides agricultural industry with the sustainability and economic viability needed to satisfy the food and fiber needs of society.  Insecticide exposures are implicated in the reduced number of honey bee colonies.  Therefore, minimizing insecticide exposure in bees is warranted to not only minimize the risk of colony decline, but also for native bee species as well, thereby improving pollinator and ecosystem health.  One approach for minimizing toxicant exposure is the application of repellent formulations on insecticide-treated crops to protect honey bees from agricultural chemical residues.  Here, we will report the spatial and contact repellency of essential oil chemotypes against honey bees.  These data will be discussed with regard to the structure-activity relationship of each essential oil chemotype and will serve as a pre-requisite for selecting viable candidates in repellent formulations to protect these pollinators from insecticide exposures.

Spatial and contact activities of repellent chemotypes to honey bees:  Are essential oils viable candidates for protecting pollinators from insecticide exposures?

248th National Meeting (2014)

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