Institute for Apiculture (Oberursel)

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The Institute for Apiculture in Oberursel (Taunus) is a research facility of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . It combines basic university research on honeybees with practical beekeeping .

history

The institute was founded in 1937 by the Polytechnic Society with Hugo Gontarski as its first director. In addition to basic research, the institute should support practical beekeeping; The focus of the work was initially on honey chemistry, nutritional physiology and the anatomy of bees. The cooperation agreement concluded with the University of Giessen ended with Gontarski's death in 1963.

Martin Lindauer campaigned for the Institute for Apiculture to be maintained together with the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main since 1964. The new head, Friedrich Ruttner , was appointed to the University of Frankfurt as professor of zoology in the natural science faculty. Under Ruttner, new research topics were developed, in addition to the mating behavior and genetics, the taxonomy and biogeography of the various subspecies of the western honey bee. These intensive research contacts were maintained with scientists and beekeepers from all over the world, including the for the breeding of Buckfast bee known brother Adam . Ruttner and his French colleague Jean Louveaux founded the specialist journal Apidologie in 1970 , today one of the most important bee science journals. Ruttner wrote a. a. the standard apiculture work, natural history of honey bees . In 1976 the first Varroa mites were unintentionally introduced into Germany and discovered by researchers from Oberursel.

Nikolaus Koeniger succeeded Ruttner in 1981 after his retirement and continued his work to a large extent thematically. In 2008, with the reorientation of the institute's content, neurobiological research and teaching began and Bernd Grünewald was appointed as the new director. Important research topics the functioning of the bee brain, learning the bee and the effects of were bee diseases and pesticides on the physiology and behavior of the honeybee.

Research priorities

Current research focuses of the facility are:

  • Neurobiology of learning and memory formation
  • How transmitter receptors work
  • Effects of bee diseases and pesticides on the nervous system
  • New therapies for bee diseases

In addition, the public is informed about the ecological and economic importance of honey bees in the form of lectures and guided tours.

Institute director

  • Hugo Gontarski (1938–1963)
  • Friedrich Ruttner (1964–1981)
  • Nikolaus Koeniger (1981-2007)
  • Bernd Grünewald (2008–)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Ruttner: Natural history of honey bees . Franckh Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-440-09125-2 .
  2. ↑ Friedrich Ruttner, Wolfgang Ritter: The penetration of Varroa jacobsoni into Europe in retrospect. In: General German beekeeping newspaper. Vol. 14, No. 5, 1980, pp. 130-134.


Coordinates: 50 ° 13 '4.4 "  N , 8 ° 32" 54.1 "  E