Beeology: Honeybee Science from Theory to Practice
Beekeeping is an ancient human practice that is becoming increasingly important in recent years, due to the stark decline of both wild and farmed bee populations, as well as their role as the major pollinators of several natural and agricultural habitats.
The summer course is designed to supply the growing demand for science-based best beekeeping practices, and it is aimed at students and also to those interested in learning more about honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) biology.
The course content includes knowledge about the history of beekeeping, apiculture legislation, basic bee biology, plant science and pollination, genetics, metabolism and nutrition, pathology, bee welfare, colony collapse disorder, and several aspects of honey production, including its harvest and quality assessment. Theory classes will be combined with practical sessions at the UABee apiary and UAB laboratories.
Courses generally have little or no prerequisite knowledge required for a given topic, however if students face any doubts, we recommend they contact course professors to clarify.
| Week | Contents | Teaching / learning activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
1. Course plan, facilities and personal protection |
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| 2 |
11. Genetics I |
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| 3 |
21. Colony collapse disorder I: pesticides and habitat loss |
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Continuous (theory and practical, subjective) = 20%
Quiz tests 1 & 2 (objective) = 40% (last 2 classes)
Student individual presentation seminar (subjective) = 40% (last 2 classes)
Crane E. 1999. The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. Routledge, New York, USA. 720 pages.
Gonell F. and Gómez-Pajuelo A. 2018. Buenas prácticas en sanidad y alimentación de las colmenas [Good practices in hive health and feeding]. Pajuelo Consultores Apícolas, Castellón, Spain. 46 pages.
Louveaux J., Maurizio A. and Vorwohl G. 1970. Methods of melissopalynology. Bee World 51:125-138.
Seeley T.D. 2019. The Lives of Bees. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, USA. 353 pages.
Smith B.H. and Burden C.M. 2014. A proboscis extension response protocol for investigating behavioral plasticity in insects: application to basic, biomedical, and agricultural research. J. Vis. Exp. (91), e51057, doi:10.3791/51057
Spivak M. 2013. TED: Why bees are disappearing
Varma A. 2015. TED: The first 21 d of a bee’s life.
Von Frisch K. 1953. The Dancing Bees. Springer-Verlag, Wien, Austria. 183 pages.
Wilson-Rich N. 2014. TED: The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. Ivy Press, Lewes, UK. 224 pages.
Wilson-Rich N. 2020. TEDxBoston: Every city needs healthy honeybees.
Gerardo Caja. Emeritus Professor at the Department of Animal and Food Science of the Faculty of Veterinary of the UAB. He studied at the Polytechnic. U. Valencia (UPV) and the Polytechnic U. Madrid (UPM), where he graduated as an Agric. Engineer and did his Ph.D. on Ruminant Nutrition. His teaching and research career was carried out at the UPM (Assistant and Associate Prof.), the UPV (Associate Prof. and Full Prof.) and at the UAB (Full Prof.) where he founded the Experimental Farms and the Ruminant Research Group (G2R). He has been a visiting researcher in the UK (U. Nottingham, Sutton Bonington), France (INRAe, Rennes and Montpellier), the USA (U. Minnesota-St. Paul, U. Wisconsin-Madison, U. California-Davis, U. Illinois-Urbana and U. South Dakota-Brookings), Saudi Arabia (King Saud U., Riyadh) and New Zealand (AgResearch, Hamilton). He received the International Prize for Dairy Production from the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) and was elected a member of the Catalan Academy of Veterinary Sciences. Founder of the UABee experimental apiary. Google Scholar.
- E-mail: gerardo.caja@uab.cat
- Department of Animal and Food Science
Ricardo C. Oliveira. Serra Hunter Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Entomology at the UAB. He has a B.Sc. in Biology from the U. Sao Paulo (Brazil), M.Sc. in Evolutionary biology from the Ludwig Maximilian U. (Munich, Germany) and the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (The Netherlands), and a Ph.D. from KU Leuven (Belgium). He has conducted research, field trips, expeditions and attended conferences in several European countries as well as in Australia, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, and countries in Central Asia. The main topic of his research is the study of the evolution of conflict and cooperation in biological systems, for which he uses social insects as a model system. He has experience with behavioural observations and experimental manipulations of many social insect species, including palearctic and neotropical ants, bees, and wasps, as well as with state-of-the-art RNAseq, proteomic, and bioinformatic techniques.Google Scholar
- E-mail: ricardo.oliveira@uab.cat
- Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology
Gonzalo Sancho. Predoctoral researcher at the Group of Insect Ecology and Pollination, at CREAF (Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre)-UAB. He studied his degree in Biology at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and his masters in Agriculture at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is currently focused on ecotoxicology of bees, pursuing his PhD in Ecology, studying how agricultural pesticides are affecting bees and the risks that they suppose for wild and managed pollinators.
He has laboratory experience, conducting efficacy assays of insecticides at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-Madrid). For the last years he has done field and semi-field studies of solitary bees exposure to pesticides, developing also methodology for performing tests with wild bees.
In the beekeeping field, he has been a beekeeper for the last 8 years, currently having his own apiaries in Madrid and Barcelona. Is very interested into sustainable and organic beekeeping, with a strong science-based approach.
Orcid https:/orcid.org/0000-0001-7711-846X
- E-mail: g.sancho@creaf.uab.cat
Ahmed Salama. Associate Professor in Animal Science at the UAB and a member of the Ruminant Research Group (G2R) recognized as a Consolidated Research Group by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Earn his B.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences (Cairo U., Egypt), M.Sc. in Animal Nutrition (U. Zaragoza), and Ph.D. in Animal Science from the UAB. He has been a visiting scholar at the USA (U. Illinois-Urbana, South Dakota State U.-Brookings), U. Bern (Switzerland), King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), Federal Rural University of the Semi-arid Region (Brazil), INRAE (France), and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden). He has been teaching several courses at the under- and graduate levels in different universities in Spain, the USA, and Brazil. Co-founder of the UABee experimental apiary.
Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.es/citations?hl=es&user=gzjt2NUAAAAJ)
- E-mail: ahmed.salama@creaf.uab.cat