Drifting behaviour and colony health in social bees

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Bees are important pollinators of wild and agricultural plants. Among the most important pollinators in temperateregions are honeybees (Apis mellifera) and, in the tropics, the stingless bees or Meliponini. People keep bees inapiaries to facilitate beekeeping and pollination. For traditional communities in the Amazon, beekeeping of nativeBrazilian stingless bees is of both economic and cultural importance as bees provide food, income and medicinalproducts. Bees face a cocktail of anthropogenic stressors, including pesticides, climate change, emerging pathogens andhabitat destruction. In the long term, the interactions among these stressors can lead to high annual mortality ratesof bee colonies and, potentially, elevated risks to pollinator communities due to a spill-over of diseases from infectedhives to other hives and wild pollinators. One behaviour that is of particular interest for colony health and diseasetransmission is worker "drifting", which means that bees enter the wrong hive, either by accident or to steal food sources.The interactions between drifting and anthropogenic stressors and diseases are still poorly understood. The aim of this PhD studentship is to study the links between drifting behaviour, the nutritional state of colonies, pesticideexposure and pathogen infection. It will do so by studying stingless bees in the deforestation arc in the Brazilian Maranhãoregion and honeybees in the UK. Four specific aims are addressed: 1) Understand the links between drifting behaviour anddiseases, 2) understand the links between drifting behaviour and pesticides, 3) understand the links between driftingbehaviour and the nutritional and foraging condition of colonies and, 4) understand the links between the spatialarrangement of apiaries and drifting behaviour. The latter will be combined with simulation modelling to assess how thespatial arrangement of colonies can reduce drifting and disease spread. This project will allow the candidate to learn an exciting mix of methodological approaches and work in both Brazil, incollaboration with the not-for-profit organisation Meli and local communities, and in the UK