Danilo Bevk

On Friday, July 13th 2012, on Biotechnical faculty, University of Ljubljana, Danilo Bevk defended his doctoral thesis entitled “The effects of acaricide coumaphos on foraging activity, social behaviour and learning in honeybee Apis mellifera L.” under the mentorship of Dr. Jasna Kralj and Prof. Dr. Andrej Čokl.

On Friday, July 13th 2012, on Biotechnical faculty, University of Ljubljana, Danilo Bevk defended his doctoral thesis entitled “The effects of acaricide coumaphos on foraging activity, social behaviour and learning in honeybee Apis mellifera L.” under the mentorship of Dr. Jasna Kralj and Prof. Dr. Andrej Čokl.



Honeybees are exposed to the pesticides not only in the field but also in the hive due to use of acaricides to control the parasitic mite Varroa destructor. One of the widely used acaricides is the organophosphate coumaphos. Dr. Danilo Bevk investigated whether coumaphos affects behaviour of honeybees. Results demonstrated that coumaphos reduce foraging activity and food transfer between workers and negatively affects learning of honeybees.

Dr. Danilo Bevk also developed two new assays to test the affects of pesticides on food transfer and collaborate in development of use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) method for observing foraging activity.