Title "Sub-lethal effects of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid on honey bees colony survival and vitality: a laboratory evaluation"

The Carniolan honey bee Apis mellifera carnica (Pollman, 1879) is a subspecies of the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera. This bee race, also called “grey bee”, is mainly spread in the Alps, but also in Balkan and Carpathians mountains, in Hungary and Romania. This thesis aims to assess the sub-lethal effects of the imidacloprid, a systemic nitroguanidine insecticide belonging to the group of neonicotinoids, on Carniolan bee colony survival and vitality.  Imidacloprid concentration of bee samples (e.g. pollen, wax, honey, bee bread and bee body) will be determine using a HPLC-DAD. Two groups of bee colonies will be considered, exposed or not to the insecticide treatments in apple orchards. Moreover, bee samples will be collected at different time of the year. Results will be linked with bee colony survival, queen performance and bee vitality. These experiments should enable us to follow imidacloprid metabolism and translocation over time within the bee colony. Particularly interesting will be to find out imidacloprid translocation from pollen to larval brood and to royal jelly, as some sub-lethal effects on queen performance have been already noticed. Moreover, our results may contribute to better explain the phenomenon of massive disappearance of entire bee colonies, named as Colony Collapse Disorder.