Honey bees maintained in agricultural landscapes frequently experience the adverse effects of sublethal pesticide exposure, virus infection, and poor forage, but the interactions between these factors remain complex and highly variable. To better understand these stressor dynamics, I performed a series of high-throughput bioassays measuring the survivorship of adult honey bee workers when exposed to different combinations of diet types, pesticides (chlorpyrifos, thiamethoxam, and lambda-cyhalothrin), and virus (Israeli acute paralysis virus) infection. My results showed that diet type can significantly influence survivorship response but is dependent on pesticide identity and presence of virus. Pollen consumption can improve survival when bees are exposed to viruses and field-relevant pesticide doses and can even be involved with inducing hormetic responses to chlorpyrifos ingestion, but these effects are not universal across all pesticides. Quantification of immune gene expression reveals a complicated interaction network that suggests that pollen consumption boosts certain detoxification genes while pesticide exposure depresses it. Taken together, these findings all contribute towards an improved understanding of basic bee biology and can eventually be translated to informing bee health management decisions.

Eat healthy or die young: Interactions between diet, pesticides, and viruses in honey bees

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