Eckerds biology students are researching how the brain is impacted by experience and how pesticides are affecting organisms through an interesting model: the honeybee.

Colonies of over 150,000 total bees live within Eckerds palm hammock habitat, making babies and honey for students to study.

Seniors Jasmine Oakley and Sasha Grossman started this project with Assistant Professor of Biology Scott Dobrin last spring. After caring for the colonies all summer, they look forward to collecting data this semester about the bees brain structures in different life stages and with various exposures to pesticides.

Overall, its trying to understand how the brains of the bees change as they have more experience and with age, Oakley said.

The research lab is still working out methodology and funding, with most of their efforts focused on caring for the bees, determining how they can keep them alive in the lab and the certain concentrations of pesticides they will use. They care for the bees both in the lab and out in the colonies.

Our research is really important, because we are basically trying to prove that even a little bit of pesticides can lead to bad diseases. So its important for our health, Oakley said.

In the lab, the bees are kept in small plexiglass containers, with 10 to 30 bees in each. They are fed with little tubes of sugar, or, most recently, a special nectar mixture, that is changed everyday. Students also clean the bee cages in the event that some have died.

They dont like seeing their dead friends, Grossman said.

Out in the colonies, the care is more relaxed.

We just let them do their own thing, Oakley said. And then every once in a while, well go and look and make sure that theyre OK

Dobrin needed to become an expert beekeeper quickly for his research. As long as things look normal in his eyes, the bees are OK.

Your job is less keeping the bees, but creating an environment that theyre happy in, Dobrin said.

He makes sure that there is some sign of the queen, the most important bee of the hive that provides all of the offspring. They also scrape the comb off of the boxes, called supers, to keep things tidy so that the bees have enough space.

Its kind of like if you have a car sitting around for a long period of time, you just sort of have to run it every so often, Dobrin said.

Dobrin has found quite a niche of beekeepers in our surrounding community.

Pinellas County has this amazing beekeeper association, Dobrin said. Ive gone to a bunch of different ones just in the places that Ive lived. And Ive never seen so many people show up to this before.

Oakley and Grossman do not find their research to be particularly dangerous, with only two cases of students stung by the bees. Bees typically only sting if their colonies are threatened or if humans disturb them through noise, waving around their hands or squishing them.

Theyre really sweet bees, Oakley said. Theyre just so gentle and sweet, and really chill.

In terms of pesticide exposure, the lab is focusing on one of the more common pesticides, neonicotinoids, and how that impacts the bees brains. They plan to study both short and long-term exposure, as well as the compounding impacts that may come from a mixture of pesticides. Dobrin equates it to combining different drugs and how their impacts compound in serious ways.

According to Dobrin, pesticides have impacts on more than just insects. Researchers are still not sure how these chemicals will affect human health in the long-term.

Besides human health, according to Oakley, bees provide other services to humans and nature. Bees pollinate a significant portion of our food, and they have been dying off in recent years.

Bees are probably one of the most important insects and animals that we have. We would not be alive without them, Grossman said.

Oakley, Grossman and Dobrin encourage students to come visit their lab and ask them questions if they are curious about bee research.

Students should not disturb the colonies in the palm hammock to avoid interfering with the research on them or disturb the natural pollinators.

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Bees, brains and behavior: Honeybees give insight into neuroscience - The Current