UK Professor Wins Grant to Study Honeybee Nutrition

By Blake Jackson

Clare Rittschof, Ph.D., associate professor of entomology and a Bill Gatton Foundation Distinguished Professor in the University of Kentucky’s Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, has been awarded funding through the first year of the Scialog: Neurobiology and Changing Ecosystems initiative.

The initiative is supported by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation, and The Kavli Foundation.

Rittschof’s team received $66,000 for their project, “Bee-ing aware: Monitoring honeybee larval nutrition, chemical exposure and neurobiological effects.” The study focuses on understanding how early-life nutrition and exposure to environmental chemicals impact honeybee health and survival.

“While honeybees play a vital role in global food production, colony mortality rates are historically high and unsustainable in the U.S. Many factors like pollution and poor nutrition contribute to colony losses, but their impacts on early life stages in the honey bee are virtually unknown,” said Rittschof.

The project will use advanced laboratory techniques to examine the jelly-like food adult bees provide to larvae. By identifying nutrients, plant compounds, and pollutants across multiple hives, the research aims to uncover how dietary variation affects development.

“The larval stage of the honeybee is the ‘feeding stage,’ so we need to understand the sources of variation in this diet in order to support pollinator health and food security. Hopefully our efforts will make it easier to collect these critical data,” Rittschof explained.

Collaborators include Ina Anreiter from the University of Toronto Scarborough and Alexander Zestos of American University. Rittschof’s project is one of six cross-disciplinary efforts in the U.S. and Canada to receive funding this year.

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