Dynamics of hydrophilic and hydrohobic tracing dyes in honey bee (Apis mellifera) hives

Many chemical treatments are often tested for their impact on honey bees ( Apis mellifera) in a hive setting. This is frequently done via feeding   whole hives treated sugar syrup and or treated pollen patties. The purpose of this type of exposure is to mimic natural consumption when testing lethal or sub-lethal effects of a given treatment.  It would be useful to know how a compound’s basic chemical properties and the way that chemical is fed to honey bees effect where it ends up in the hive. Here we used two chemically different fluorescent tracing dyes and exposed a group of 20 hives either to dyed pollen patties, sugar syrup, both, or none. We then sampled adult workers, larvae, pupae, wax, pollen, and honey,  at regular intervals, and royal jelly at the end of the study. These samples were later processed and the level of dye present in each sample was detected using a spectrophotometer.