Honey bees do not exist as sole individuals, they are highly social to the point of being unable to survive for more than a few days separate from their colonies. Honey bees cannot reproduce on their own, and rely on nest mates for feeding, grooming, and protection. In this line of work, we are particularly interested in how individuals that leave the colony, primarily the males and foragers, are exposed to stressors that are then brought into the colony and into contact with more protected members like the queen and the larvae. This idea is most recently outlined in Alex Walton’s recent paper, with our own work on the impacts of Terramycin and Amitraz on honey bee reproductive paper representing the first stab at exploring this in our system. Undergraduate research Parker Profet conducted the work on queen reproductive behavior and Patrick Gallagher of the Raymann Lab assessed the microbiome. In trying to reconcile the difference between lab and field effects of beekeeper-applied agrochemicals, we have additionally worked with Andrew Hall at NCSU METRIC to directly trace the spread of antibiotics throughout the honey bee colony. Finally, former undergraduate researcher Cecille Ernst worked on developing a general model bioassay to be able to explore the transmission of powdered substances between workers using a fluorescent dye.

Andrew Hall is presenting this poster at the 2026 American Society for Mass Spectrometry, where he demonstrates that the amount of oxytetracycline (Terramycin) detectable in a single bee decreases by about a natural log with each 25 min interaction; with the final amount of antibiotic found in the focal individuals (larvae) of a natural honey bee colony being approximately 260 times lower than any biologically expected effect, as estimated from historical zone of inhibition studies.