The COLOSS (Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes)
Association aims to explain and prevent massive honey bee
colony losses. It was funded through the COST Action
FA0803. COST (European Cooperation in Science and
Technology) is a unique means for European researchers to
jointly develop their own ideas and new initiatives across all
scientific disciplines through trans-European networking of
nationally funded research activities. Based on a pan-European
intergovernmental framework for cooperation in science and
technology, COST has contributed since its creation more
than 40 years ago to closing the gap between science, policy
makers and society throughout Europe and beyond. COST is
supported by the EU Seventh Framework Program for
research, technological development and demonstration activities
(Official Journal L 412, 30 December 2006). The European
Science Foundation as implementing agent of COST provides
the COST Office through an EC Grant Agreement. The
Council of the European Union provides the COST
Secretariat. The COLOSS network is now supported by the
Ricola Foundation – Nature & Culture. Figures 26–28 are
reproduced from Sawyer (1981) with the permission of the
publishers University College Cardiff Press and Northern Bee Books. Lidia Barreto and J Nordi wish to thank the Apiculture
Research Center of Taubate University (UNITAU-SP/Brazil)
and Agriculture Secretary of Bahia State (SEAGRI-BA/
BRAZIL). Maria Campos wishes to thank (UI0204): UIDB/
00313/2020, Center of Chemistry from Faculty of Sciences
and Technology of University of Coimbra, Portugal. Of elia
Anjos wishes to thank to Forest Research Centre, a research
unit funded by Fundac¸~ao para a Ci^encia e a Tecnologia I.P.
(FCT), Portugal (UIDB/00239/2020), and to Centro de
Biotecnologia de Plantas da Beira Interior for the OPUS software
availability. Norma Almaraz Abarca thanks to the
Instituto Politecnico Nacional for financial and logistic support.
Manuel Chica and Pascual Campoy wish to thank the
APIFRESH project. APIFRESH has been co-funded by the
European Commission under the R4SMEs 7th Framework
Program. Olena Lokutova thanks the Austrian Institute of beekeeping,
Dr H Pehhacker and the same members of the
Institute H Hagel and E H€uttinger for conducting photomicroscopic
studies and pollen analysis Ukrainian samples of
pollen loads, which were the basis of the atlas of pollen
“honey plants” of Ukraine. Olena is grateful also to Polish colleagues
Z Warakomska (Department of Botany University of
Lublin) and D Teper (Polish Institute of beekeeping) for their
professionalism and consultations to determine the botanical
origin of some Ukrainian honey. Also thanks to their scientific
advisers’ academician G Bogdanov (National Academy of
Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine), Prof. V Polishuk (Department
of beekeeping National University of Life and Environmental
Sciences of Ukraine) and O Martynyuk (M.G. Kholodny
Institute of Botany, Kiev, Ukraine) for his helpful co-operation
in the field of beekeeping and palinology. Janka Nozkova
wishes to thank the Operational Program Research and
Development of the European Regional Development Fund in
the frame of the project “Support of technologies innovation
for special bio-food products for human healthy nutrition”
(ITMS 26220220115) and also by the Excellence Center for
Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Benefit – project implemented
under the Operational Program Research and
Development financed by European Fund for Regional
Development ITMS 26220120015 (Slovak Republic) and all
colleagues from Institute of Biodiversity and Biosafety, Slovak
University of Agriculture in Nitra for their help with image
analysis. Ananias Pascoal, Georgina Tolentino and Let ıcia
Estevinho would like to thank Fundac¸~ao para a Ci^encia e
Tecnologia (FCT), Programa Operacional Pontencial Humano
(POPH) and European Union (EU) for his Postdoctoral grant
SFRH/BPD/91380/2012. Wiebke Sickel, Markus Ankenbrand,
Gudrun Grimmer, Frank F€orster, Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter and
Alexander Keller thank the financial support by the DFG
Collaborative Research Center 1047, Insect Timing. MJA was
further supported by a grant of the German Excellence
Initiative to the Graduate School of Life Sciences of the
University of W€urzburg. They are grateful to the members of
the Departments of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology;
Bioinformatics; and Human Genetics, University of W€urzburg,
for constructive input on the design of the workflow.
Additionally thank to the Department of Human Genetics,
especially S. Rost, for granting access to the Illumina MiSeq
device. Zivoslav Te si c, Mirjana Mosi c, Aleksandar Kosti c,
Mirjana Pe si c, Du sanka Milojkovi c-Opsenica thank the Ministry
of Education, Science and Technological Development of
Serbia, Grants 172017 and TR 31069. Gina Tolentino would
like to thank the Mountain Research Center (CIMO),
Agricultural College of Bragança, Polytechnic Institute of
Braganc¸a for his research grant in the project titled "
Development of new bee products in biological production
way.”
“Bee pollen” is pollen collected from flowers by honey bees. It is used by the bees to nourish themselves, mainly by providing royal jelly and brood food, but it is also used for human nutrition. For the latter purpose, it is collected at the hive entrance as pellets that the bees bring to the hive. Bee pollen has diverse bioactivities, and thus has been used as a health food, and even as medication in some countries. In this paper, we provide standard methods for carrying out research on bee pollen. First, we introduce a method for the production and storage of bee pollen which assures quality of the product. Routine methods are then provided for the identification of the pollen’s floral sources, and determination of the more important quality criteria such as water content and content of proteins, carbohydrates, fatty acids, vitamins, alkaloids, phenolic and polyphenolic compounds. Finally, methods are described for the determination of some important bioactivities of bee pollen such as its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antimutagenic properties. Métodos estándar Para la investigación del polen El "polen de abeja" es el polen recogido de las flores por las abejas melíferas. El polen de abeja es utilizado para nutrir a las propias abejas, principalmente para proporcionar jalea real y alimento para las crías, pero también se utiliza para la nutrición humana. Para este último fin, se recoge en la entrada de la colmena en forma de gránulos que las abejas llevan a la colmena. El polen de abeja tiene diversas bioactividades, por lo que se hautilizado como alimento para la salud, e incluso como medicamento en algunos países. En este artículo, proporcionamos métodos estándar para llevar a cabo investigaciones sobre el polen de abeja. En primer lugar, presentamos un método de producción y almacenamiento de polen de abeja que garantiza la calidad del producto. A continuación, se ofrecen métodos de rutina para la identificación de las fuentes florales del polen y la determinación de los criterios de calidad más importantes, como el contenido de agua y de proteínas, carbohidratos, ácidos grasos, vitaminas, alcaloides y compuestos fenólicos y polifenólicos. Por último, se describen métodos para la determinación de algunas bioactividades importantes del polen de abeja, como sus propiedades antioxidantes, antiinflamatorias, antimicrobianas y antimutagénicas.
