Bee and beekeeping research in a rapidly changing world: Advancements and challenges

Populations of pollinating insects are in concrete decline globally. Many wild bees are now considered at risk of extinction, disappearing from many habitats. In the last decade, high attention has been paid to the rarefaction of the populations of Apis mellifera, the common honeybee. Populations of this species have suffered significant numerical losses since 2006–2007 in the USA, when the phenomenon of colony collapse disorder (CCD) was first described by B. Oldroyd [3]. The great interest in the decline of this species is justified by the fact that honeybees, in addition to providing important foods and products such as honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly and venom [4,5,6,7,8], have long been employed for the pollination service [9,10]. Therefore, their decline poses a serious threat to the production of important crops for human consumption globally, with major repercussions on yields. To face this worrying scenario, we should focus on the complexity of the trophic networks in which the honeybee participates, acting as a reliable indicator of the level of environmental sustainability of a given habitat