Effect of the essential oil of Eupatorium buniifolium in the production of the honey bee pheromone, ethyl oleate

CARMEN ROSSINI ; MARÍA L. UMPIÉRREZ; BELÉN DAVYT; FEDERICO RODRIGO; MARTÍN PORRINI; P. MELISA GARRIDO; MARTÍN EGUARAS

Iguazú

Congreso; . Congreso of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology (ALAEQ) y ?First meeting ALAEQ/ISCE?; 2016

Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology (ALAEQ) y International Society of Chemical Ecology

Task allocation inthe honeybee hives is regulated by many signals including ethyloleate, a primerpheromone that delays the change from nursing to foraging. The correct balanceof tasks is essential to keep the hive health. Beekeeping is threaten by manysanitary problems including parasitic mites. During a prospecting program insearch for essential oils with acaricidal activity, we identified the essentialoil from Eupatorium buniifolium (Asteraceae) as a candidate to controlmites with no toxic effects on bees1. Since someacaricides can disturb the ethyloleate levels, we studied the effect of orallyingested E. buniifolium essential oil on the ethyloleate produced byworker bees.  Two essentialoils extracted from E. buniifolium plants from the same geographicallocation but extracted at different times were included in the honeybee dietand their effect on ethyloleate was quantified in a dose-dependent study.Hexane extracts from bees were partitioned by SPME, and the fraction containingthe ethyloleate was analyzed by GCMS using arachidonic acid methyl ester asinternal standard2. Results showedthat the 2 essential oils applied exhibited quantitative differences in thefractions containing the monoterpene hydrocarbons (57 vs. 30%) and thesesquiterpene hydrocarbons (41 vs. 69%). Despite these chemical differences,when these essential oils were ingested no effects (MANOVA) were found on theethyloleate levels compared to the control bees either for treatment (p =0.494) of for doses (p = 0.532). Therefore, eventhough the use of conventionalacaricides have been shown to affect ethyloleate levels3, these resultssuggest that the use of natural products such as essential oils to treat comb diseasesmay not alter the normal colony homeostasis. (1)   Parasitology Research 2013, 112, 3389.(2)   J. Chem. Ecol. 2010, 36, 522.(3)    In III Encuentrode la Asociación Latino Americana de Ecología Química (ALAEQ III)Bogotá-Colombia, 2014.