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 |
Course plan and beekeeping panorama. Legal protection. Basic bee biology. Bees, plants and pollination. Genetics and reproduction. Metabolism and nutrition. Bee microscopy and pollen analysis. |
Classroom teaching Laboratory Study |
| 2 | Hive management. Hive sensors and monitoring. Bee pathology and hive hygiene. Bee predators and defense systems. Colony collapse disorder: pesticides and habitat loss. Bee welfare. Hive hardware, feeding and inspection work. |
Classroom Apiary Study
|
| 3 | Honey composition and quality assessment. Honey extraction and processing. Student’s work seminars. |
Classroom and seminars Laboratory Honey extraction chamber |
Attending more than 80% of theoretical and 100% practical classes
Responding a 20 questions general quiz on bees
Teamwork (2 students) for solving a case or doing a hot topic short review, from a previously proposed list by the course teachers and updated every year, based on data or literature and presenting the results in an open seminar at the end of the summer course.
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
Jordina Belmonte. Associate Prof. of Botany at the Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology of the UAB and researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB). Her research is on aerobiology: study of the diversity, levels and dynamics of pollen and fungal spores in the air as well as of their allergens. She is responsible of the “Laboratori d’Anàlisis Palinològiques” (https://sct.uab.cat/lap/), the “Xarxa Aerobiològica de Catalunya, XAC” and the “Punt d’Informació Aerobiològica, PIA (https://aerobiologia.cat). In the recent years research on melissopalynology and on the study of airborne microarthropods has been incorporated to her research interests. She has participated in over 28 research projects and in over 100 research contracts with companies and/or private or public funding bodies. She acts as reviewer of an important number of scientific journals of high impact index in the area of aerobiology, allergology, environment and atmospheric sciences. Nowadays she is the President of the Catalan Institution of Natural History (“Institució Catalana d’Història Natural, ICHN)” and the President of the European Aerobiology Society (EAS). Google Scholar.
- E-mail: jordina.belmonte@uab.cat
- Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology
Cristina Riba. Associate Professor in Procedural Law at Private Law Department of the Faculty of Law in UAB, where she graduated in Law. She did her Ph.D. in procedural rights after been in U. Bologna and U. Pavia (Italy). Her teaching and research has been in the UAB. She has been visiting research in European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg), the Max Planck Institute (Luxembourg) and U. Montréal (Canada). Co-founder of the UABee experimental apiary. Google Scholar.
- E-mail: cristina.riba@uab.cat
- Department of Private Law
Jesús Piedrafita. Professor at the Department of Animal and Food Science of the Faculty of Veterinary of the UAB. He studied at the Zaragoza University (UZ), where he graduated and did his Ph.D. on Animal Genetics. His teaching and research career was carried out at the UZ (Assistant Prof.) and at the UAB (Associate and Full Prof.). He has been a Fulbright visiting researcher in the USA (Iowa State U.). He coordinated one EU funded project (FAIR program) and he is a genetics and breeding consultant for the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and the Catalan Department of Plant and Animal Agriculture. Co-founder of the UABee experimental apiary. Google Scholar.
- E-mail: jesus.piedrafita@uab.cat
- Department of Animal and Food Science
J. Francisco Pérez. Professor at the Department of Animal and Food Science of the Faculty of Veterinary of the UAB. He studied at the University of Zaragoza (UZ), where he graduated as a Veterinary and Ph.D. in Animal Nutrition. He is member of the Animal Nutrition and Welfare Service (SNiBA, attached to TECNIO and granted by the Generalitat de Catalunya). His teaching and research career is being carried out in the field of Animal Nutrition, and with special dedication to projects that integrate the study of Nutrition, Management, and Animal Welfare of monogastric animals and coordinates an interdisciplinary research consortium. From a beekeeper family.
- E-mail: josefrancisco.perez@uab.cat
- Department of Animal and Food Science
Abdelaali El Had is a Postdoctoral fellowship and member of the Ruminant Research Group (G2R), works as Technician for research support at the Department of Animal and Food Sciences of the UAB. Graduated in Agricultural Engineering in Animal Production (Agronomic and Veterinary Institute Hassan II, Morocco), he also earned the double official M.Sc. degree in Animal Nutrition from the International Centre for Advanced Agronomic Mediterranean Studies and the University of Zaragoza (Spain). Thereafter, he obtained his PhD. in Animal Production at the UAB (Spain) and the official qualification as Research staff user of animals for experimentation. He was granted with an Erasmus+ and made a research stage at the Department of Animal Science of the Aarhus University (Denmark). He is also co-founder of the UABee experimental apiary.
- E-mail: abdelaali.elhadi@uab.cat
- Department of Animal and Food Science