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By Gary Hartley | Scientific American March 2022 Issue

Small flies’ extreme clamping feet let them walk on a flying bee

To wrangle a ride on their honeybee hosts, wingless parasitic flies need a truly phenomenal grasp. Now a new study reveals how Braula coeca manages to walk around on a flying bee while exhibiting what researchers say is the highest attachment force per body weight of any land-based insect ever measured.
This force relies on the parasite’s highly adapted feet, called tarsi, which are equipped with toothed claws. Each foot has a total of 28 teeth, or claw tips, which let the parasite lock onto sparse honeybee hairs during flight.

“The claws are unique, from what we know so far. Usually insects have claws with one tip only. A few species have two to three tips. But this species possesses comblike claws with several tips and deep interstices [gaps],” says Thies Büscher, a zoologist at Germany’s Kiel University and co-lead author of a recent study in Physiological Entomology.

The claws are complemented by soft lateral ridges and “stoppers” along the foot, letting the fly swiftly break its rigid grip with a simple twisting motion and detach from the hairs as it moves—a trait likely to be intriguing to researchers working in biology-influenced design, or biomimetics. The parasite’s feet also feature pads that firmly cling to smooth surfaces, such as the wax in beehives.

“Other strongly attaching animals either secrete strong glues or anchor with structures that damage the surface,” Büscher says. “Both solutions are more or less permanent and do not allow for fast detachment and locomotion.” But because B. coeca’s grasping mechanisms are purely mechanical, they could prove useful for both terrestrial and underwater robots.

“Attachment technology is a prominent domain within biomimetic research,” says Shoshanah Jacobs, an integrative biologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who was not involved in the research. Jacobs agrees with Büscher on the finding’s potential value but notes that designers working on attachment problems might not readily become aware of such discoveries in insect physiology.

“Biomimetic researchers grapple with the challenges of knowledge mobilization across disciplinary silos,” Jacobs says. “When we’ve figured out how to do this better, we may very well be opening a floodgate of innovation.”

This article was originally published with the title “Science in Images” in Scientific American 326, 3, 20-21 (March 2022)
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0322-20

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/honeybee-parasites-have-record-breaking-clinginess/

New season, new survey! The Bee Informed Partnership team, in collaboration with the Auburn University Bee Lab, are enthusiastically inviting all U.S. beekeepers to take part in this year’s survey.

The Loss and Management Survey is a national effort that tracks long-term trends of U.S. honey bee colony health. The survey’s main objective is to monitor colony loss rates that beekeepers experience each year, the management actions that beekeepers take, and to compare these losses and practices among all types of beekeeping operations − from backyard hobbyists to large, multistate commercial operations.
Be part of the 10%

In previous years, about one in 10 U.S. beekeepers – and 14% of the nation’s estimated 2.6 million colonies – were represented in the survey. We hope that this year we will have even greater participation from the beekeeping community!

New focus topic for 2022

The survey focuses on a specific theme every year, which will reoccur based on a regular rotation schedule. Last year, the survey focused on “Queens and New Colonies”. This year, the focus will be “Nutrition and Environment”.
We rely on word of mouth to reach as many beekeepers as possible, so please share this announcement with your beekeeping friends!
Thanks so much for your participation and help in spreading the word!

The Bee Informed Partnership Team

collected on raw honey entries going back to August 25, 2021, if the finding is upheld by the
U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC).

On June 4, 2021, the USITC unanimously determined that there is a reasonable indication that unfairly traded imports of raw honey from Argentina, Brazil, India, Ukraine, and Vietnam are injuring the U.S. industry producing raw honey. The USITC is scheduled to reach a final injury determination as to the remaining raw honey exporters from Argentina, Brazil, India and Vietnam by May 11, 2022.

The product covered by these investigations is raw honey. Raw honey is honey as it exists in the beehive or as obtained by extraction, settling and skimming, or coarse straining. Raw honey has not been filtered to a level that results in the removal of most or all of the pollen (25 microns). The subject products include all grades, floral sources and colors of raw honey and also includes organic raw honey. Excluded from the scope is comb honey or honey that is packaged for retail sale (e.g., in bottles or other retail containers of five (5) lbs. or less).

AHPA Contact: Chris Hiatt (chrishiatt@ahpanet.com)

SHA Contact: Alex Blumenthal (ABlumenthal@suebeehoney.com)

M. J. Walker, S. Cowen, K. Gray, P. Hancock & D. T. Burns

Abstract
The composition of honey, a complex natural product, challenges analytical methods attempting to determine its authenticity particularly in the face of sophisticated adulteration. Of the advanced analytical techniques available, only isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) is generally accepted for its reproducibility and ability to detect certain added sugars, with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) being subject to stakeholder differences of opinion. Herein, recent reviews of honey adulteration and the techniques to detect it are summarised in the light of which analytical reports are examined that underpinned a media article in late 2020 alleging foreign sugars in UK retailers’ own brand honeys. The requirement for multiple analytical techniques leads to complex reports from which it is difficult to draw an overarching and unequivocal authenticity opinion. Thus arose two questions. (1) Is it acceptable to report an adverse interpretation without exhibiting all the supporting data? (2) How may a valid overarching authenticity opinion be derived from a large partially conflicting dataset?

Introduction
In November 2020, the Government Chemist, the UK statutory technical appellate function for food control1, was asked to provide an independent secondary expert opinion on the dataset of analytical results underpinning a UK media article. The story carried the headline “Supermarket brands of honey are ‘bulked out with cheap sugar syrups made from rice and corn’”2; similar media stories recur from time to time, e.g3,4,5,6,7,8. The dataset stemmed from the analyses of 13 own-brand honey samples of major UK retailers, commissioned by a South American bee-keeping organisation. The UK Foods Standards Agency, FSA, supplied three certificates of analysis (CoA), representative of the dataset9. Herein is presented the Government Chemist’s opinion.

A European Directive (‘EU Directive’)10 defines honey as ‘the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature’. The Codex Alimentarius definition11 is similar, substituting ‘honey bees’ for the specific species as, worldwide honey may be collected from other honeybee species. The EU Directive was implemented in each of the then member states12. UK Ministerial policy responsibilities on honey are with the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs13,14, while general food law enforcement policy is with the FSA15.

Nectar is composed primarily of water, sugars, such as fructose, glucose, and other oligo- and polysaccharides, and minor constituents, such as pollen, proteins, amino acids, aliphatic acid salts, lipids, and flavouring components. Bees process the collected material with enzymes, including diastase (amylase) and invertase (α-glucosidase). Thus, honey is primarily a concentrated aqueous solution of ‘invert’ sugar (the monosaccharides glucose and fructose)16 and typically contains a wide range of saccharides, amino acids, proteins, organic acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, polyphenols and pollen. Some of these arise from honey maturation, others from the bees and some from the plants17. Honey composition depends on many factors including the botanical source, geographical origin, species of bee, year and season18. Codex and the EU Directive set certain compositional criteria. The EU Directive differentiates blossom honey (nectar honey in Codex) and honeydew honey, the latter from plant and insect secretions. Honeydew honey is also a concentrated aqueous solution of ‘invert’ sugar, albeit lower in fructose and glucose and typically darker than nectar honey; its chemical characteristics, such as pH, acidity, electric conductivity and other minor components including oligosaccharides are typically higher than in nectar honey19. Codex, the EU Directive, and national law stipulate various labelling options and requirements for honey in addition to general food labelling requirements to protect its authenticity20…

Adulteration of honey and its detection
Anklam (1998)17 reviewed honey authenticity methods finding no single parameter provided unequivocal information about botanical or geographical origins. Some potentially suitable methods were identified indicating a botanical origin from flavonoids, pollen, aroma and marker compounds, although deliberate addition of readily-available known markers and the loss of volatile markers on storage may vitiate detection. It was suggested profiles of oligosaccharides, amino acids and trace elements could be used to verify the claimed geographical origin. A combination of methods with statistical data evaluation was a promising approach. Anklam also noted carbon stable isotope ratio analysis can detect honey adulterated with C4 sugars such as corn syrups or cane sugar (LoD 7%), particularly using the carbon isotope ratio of the honey protein fraction as an internal standard, but the addition of C3 sugars such as beet could not be proved since nectar generally arises from C3 plants. Of the 131 studies reviewed by Anklam, honey sample numbers tended to be small, generally below 30, with several up to 50 and only three between 90 and 100.

Types of adulteration
After Anklam17 subsequent reviews, with variable coverage of the literature (Fig. 1) have expanded on types of adulteration (Fig. 2). The decline of bee populations has also been mentioned21 as a driver.

Read the rest of the article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-022-00126-6