Standard methods for maintaining adult<i>Apis mellifera</i>in cages under<i>in vitro</i>laboratory conditions

TLDR

Adult honey bees are kept in laboratory cages for controlled studies of parasitology, toxicology, physiology, and to produce age‑defined workers, but choices of subspecies, temperature, humidity, and other variables can influence results and hinder comparability across studies. This paper offers practical guidelines for maintaining adult workers in vitro to enable reproducible, comparable data, aiming to equip researchers with tools rather than impose restrictions. The authors detail procedures for sourcing bees, selecting cages, setting incubator conditions, providing food, and recommend experimental design and statistical analysis strategies for caged honey bee studies.

Abstract

SummaryAdult honey bees are maintained in vitro in laboratory cages for a variety of purposes. For example, researchers may wish to perform experiments on honey bees caged individually or in groups to study aspects of parasitology, toxicology, or physiology under highly controlled conditions, or they may cage whole frames to obtain newly emerged workers of known age cohorts. Regardless of purpose, researchers must manage a number of variables, ranging from selection of study subjects (e.g. honey bee subspecies) to experimental environment (e.g. temperature and relative humidity). Although decisions made by researchers may not necessarily jeopardize the scientific rigour of an experiment, they may profoundly affect results, and may make comparisons with similar, but independent, studies difficult. Focusing primarily on workers, we provide recommendations for maintaining adults under in vitro laboratory conditions, whilst acknowledging gaps in our understanding that require further attention. We specifically describe how to properly obtain honey bees, and how to choose appropriate cages, incubator conditions, and food to obtain biologically relevant and comparable experimental results. Additionally, we provide broad recommendations for experimental design and statistical analyses of data that arises from experiments using caged honey bees. The ultimate goal of this, and of all COLOSS BEEBOOK papers, is not to stifle science with restrictions, but rather to provide researchers with the appropriate tools to generate comparable data that will build upon our current understanding of honey bees.