Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are important ecological and agricultural resources. They are among the most widely available pollinators and provide products as well as services. Unfortunately, honey bee populations are susceptible to several environmental threats, including heavy metal exposure. Honey bees can be exposed to heavy metals when foraging on contaminated honey and pollen resources, and in some cases by airborne exposure. We studied the joint acute and chronic effects of cadmium (Cd) and copper (Cu) on A. mellifera. A 1:1 solution of the two heavy metals increased larval developmental duration and the mortality of both larvae and foragers in a dose-dependent way, decreased forager feeding, increased body metal burdens, and disrupted the sucrose response behavior of foragers. In combination, Cd and Cu demonstrated a weakly synergistic effect on foragers, but for larvae an initially antagonistic effect at low doses changed to strongly synergistic response at higher concentrations. The sucrose response threshold of foragers decreased significantly when they were dosed with increasing concentrations of the metal mixtures. Overall, the fitness of honey bee larvae and foragers is detrimentally affected when these metals co-occur.

蜜蜂（Apis mellifera L.）是重要的生态和农业资源。它们是最广泛使用的传粉媒介之一，提供产品和服务。不幸的是，蜜蜂种群容易受到多种环境威胁，包括重金属暴露。在受污染的蜂蜜和花粉资源上觅食时，蜜蜂可能会暴露于重金属下，在某些情况下会通过空气传播。我们研究了镉（Cd）和铜（Cu）对A. mellifera的急性和慢性联合作用。两种重金属的1：1溶液以剂量依赖的方式增加了幼虫的发育持续时间以及幼虫和觅食者的死亡率，减少了觅食者的进食，增加了人体金属负荷，并破坏了觅食者的蔗糖反应行为。Cd和Cu的组合对觅食者显示出微弱的协同作用，但对于幼虫，最初的低剂量拮抗作用变为高浓度时的强烈协同反应。当饲喂剂量增加的金属混合物时，饲草的蔗糖反应阈值显着降低。总体而言，当这些金属同时存在时，蜜蜂幼虫和觅食者的健康状况会受到不利影响。