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2018 Abstracts

Altered Feeding Behavior and Viral Detection in Honey Bees Exposed to Organosilicone Surfactants

Matthew Thompson, Utah State University

Honey bees play an important role in agriculture and the decline of honey bee populations worldwide has generated concern. While the application of pesticides in agricultural settings is often implicated in the deterioration of honey bee population health, pesticide applications contain more than just pesticides; they also contain adjuvants that may have detrimental effects to bee health. One known effect of these adjuvants is the increase of viral load in larvae exposed to OSS. We investigate the effects of one class of inert pesticide adjuvant, organosilicone surfactants (OSS), on adult honey bee health. In a laboratory based bioassay, adult honey bees were fed various concentrations of an OSS (Xiameter® OFX-0309), alone and with a pesticide (Alticor®) and a fungicide (Tilt®). While survival of the bees was not affected by feeding regimes, bees ate significantly less diet on average if they were fed OSS at certain concentrations—indicating that bees that are exposed to these chemicals may suffer due to low food consumption. We then extracted RNA from the bioassay bees to determine viral profiles in bees from each feeding treatment. We used a strand-specific RNA library prep kit and subsequent sequencing to determine the identity of viruses present in the adult honey bees as well as the degree of their replication.