With 9 oral presentations and 10 posters Better-B is going to be extensively represented at EurBee11, the 11th European Conference of Apidology, from 7 to 10 September 2026 in Bologna, Italy.

Check out our full list of contributions below.

Oral contributions

• Dirk de Graaf (UGENT) Strategic choices when the return to resilient honey bees is difficult: a conceptual note [OC37 - S7, 8 Sept, 17:00]
• Gilles Verbinnen (UGENT) Characterization of candidate target-site insecticide resistance mutations in A. Mellifera [OC194 - S1, 8 Sept, 12:00]
• Merel Braeckman (UGENT) Honeybee blood beyond the microscope: from morphological to marker-based classification of hemocytes [OC153 - S1, 8 Sept, 12:30]
• Kamiar Torabi (UGENT) The search for genetic markers associated with thermal tolerance within several European honeybee populations [OC32, S6, 8 Sept, 16:30]
• M. Alice Pinto (IPB) Are Honey Bee Subspecies Disappearing? Genome-Wide Evidence of Widespread Human-Mediated Admixture [OC96 - S3, 8 Sept, 9:45]
• Raquel Martín-Hernández (IRIAF) Laboratory and proof-of-concept field studies: flupyradifurone exposure tests define a key protocol for European large-scale pesticide evaluations in bees [OC11, S12, 9 Sept, 12:15]
• Fernanda Li (IPB) Landscape Genomics of Pesticide Exposure in Apis mellifera [OC87, S11, Sept 9, 12:30]
• Antonio Pérez Pérez (IRIAF) A Persistent Legacy: Dynamics of Acaricide Resistance Mutations in Varroa destructor in Absence of Selection Pressure [OC95, S15, Sept 10, 10:15]
• Nuno Capela (UCOI) Reducing honeybee density led to shifts in plant-pollinator interactions [OC106, S16, Sept 10, 10:15]

Posters

The posters will be on display for the full duration of the conference.

• Ana Rita Lopes (IPB) Climatic Gradient Shape Wing Length Variation in European Honey Bees [P73]
• Ana Rita Lopes (IBP) Mitochondrial diversity of honey bees across Europe reveals human-mediated disruption of the native lineages [P150]
• Raquel Martín-Hernández (IRIAF) Beyond the pilot: the BETTER-B protocol reveals landscape-driven resilience in honey bee colonies exposed to flupyradifurone [P27]
• Emmanuel Ruffio (COA) How to insulate a Dadant hive from extreme weather conditions [P71]
• Nuno Capela (UCOI) Enhancing Honey Bee Colony Performance Through Hive Thermodynamic
• Optimisation: Practical Modifications Tested Within the BETTER-B Project [P65]
• Séverine Kotrschal (WR) Simultaneously applying Darwinian selection for honey bee survival in 8 European countries: Insights from two years of selection [P97]
• Jozef van der Steen (JVS) Better-B, beeplants.eu, a citizen scientist food source sharing study amongst pollinating insects [P76]
• Demetris Taliadoros (UU) A thousand-genome panel reveals climate-adaptive variation of the western honey bee in Europe [P75]
• Daniela Lima (IPB) Molecular Insights into Honey Bee Adaptation: Structural Effects of Missense SNPs in Response to Climate Change [P149]
• Marco Pietropaoli (IZSLT) Performances of Selective Mechanical Traps for Autumn Control of the Invasive Hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax in Western and Southern Europe [P204]

Full programme of the conference

The next Better-B public event will take place on 25 November 2026 in Bragança, Portugal, and online. We will be holding the event in both English and Portuguese (and a little bit of Spanish).

Agenda, registration and practical information are available on the meeting page. 

We have just published our fourth newsletter, in which we focus on genetics of the honey bee and local adaptation.

In this newsletter, you will learn more about the evolutionary history of honeybees, our project to sequence 1,000 genomes, our findings on genes linked to adaptation to climate change, and the genetics of bee colonies that are resistant to the Varroa mite.

Ultimately, the goal of this research is to allow beekeepers to select honeybees with genetic backgrounds that are resilient and well-adapted to their local environments.

This newsletter is available in English and soon also in several other European languages. You can find all our newsletters on the Better-B Learning Platform, where you can find more information about the project and our latest results. You can also follow us on LinkedIn.

The annual European conference of Apidology EurBee11 is quickly approaching!

Where: Bologna
When: 7-10 September 2026

With 8 talks and 11 posters presentations Better-B will have a strong presence and a wide range of topics that will be distributed across the conference's 11 symposium themes

Stay tuned for the EurBee11 full program.

One of the experiments we are running in the Better-B project aims to test the effect of heat stress on drones, the male members of a honeybee colony. Unlike the female worker bee, the drone's only purpose is to mate with a maiden queen, bringing genetic diversity (and strength) to the colony.

Due to climate change and other environmental factors, thermoregulating the beehive is becoming more challenging, and this might also affect — among other things — the drones.

In this experiment, we want to know what happens if colonies lose the ability to thermoregulate their beehive, even if just for a few hours, exposing drone brood to high temperatures.

The first step of our experiment is therefore to expose drone brood to higher temperatures and then mark the drones as they emerge, so we can collect them once they have matured (as can be seen in the pictures below).

After maturation, our researchers will collect drone sperm and apply a live/dead stain to know if previous heat exposure lead to fertility problems (dead sperm cells).