They show beekeepers lost 44 percent of their colonies. This makes 2019 the second-worst year for bees since the surveys started almost 15 years ago. Bees pollinate 75% of our food crops. With their populations rapidly declining — largely thanks to toxic pesticides — we need all hands on deck to protect them and other … More BREAKING NEWS: This year’s bee die-off numbers were just reported.
Our planet’s ecosystems rely heavily on insects, but if the global insect die-off continues at this rate, there might not be any insects left 100 years from now. One of the main drivers of this destruction? Pesticides. And this year marks the 10th year in a row where multiple states have used an EPA loophole to spray bee-killing … More Bees are dying at alarming rates, jeopardizing not only our food supply but our own survival.
Honeybees that specialise in grooming their nestmates (allogroomers) to ward off pests play a central role in the colony, finds a new UCL and University of Florence study. Allogroomer bees also appear to have stronger immune systems, possibly enabling them to withstand their higher risk of infection, according to the findings published in Scientific Reports. Ectoparasites … More Bees grooming each other can boost colony immunity.
In a world first, Edith Cowan University (ECU) researchers have discovered a plant that has successfully evolved to use both native bees as well as ants– as pollinating agents by overcoming their antimicrobial defences. ECU PhD student Nicola Delnevo discovered the trait in a group of shrubs found in the Swan Coastal Plain in Western … More Bees? Please. These plants are putting ants to work, as well.
First discovered in 2011, the rare species reappeared recently after nearly a decade of eluding scientists’ watch The indigo insect was last spotted in central Florida in 2016, five years after it was first identified. But this spring, just as Americans began to hunker down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rare blue bees, known scientifically as Osmia calaminthae, were rediscovered … More Blue Bee Feared to Be Extinct Is Found in Florida.
Have pollen. Must travel. Over 80% of the world’s flowering plants must reproduce in order to produce new flowers, according to the U.S. Forest Service. This process involves the transfer of pollen between plants by wind, water or insects called pollinators — including bumblebees. In a new study, researchers at the University of Missouri discovered … More ‘Bee’ thankful for the evolution of pollen Researchers discover wildflower’s spiny pollen adapts to help plants reproduce.
Biologists discover single female Wallace’s giant bee inside a termites’ nest in a tree. As long as an adult thumb, with jaws like a stag beetle and four times larger than a honeybee, Wallace’s giant bee is not exactly inconspicuous. But after going missing, feared extinct, for 38 years, the world’s largest bee has been rediscovered alive and well on the Indonesian … More World’s largest bee, missing for 38 years, found alive in Indonesia.
Simon Fraser University graduate student Oldooz Pooyanfar is monitoring what more than 20,000 honeybees housed in hives in a Cloverdale field are “saying” to each other — looking for clues about their health. Pooyanfar’s technology is gleaning communication details from sound within the hives with her beehive monitoring system — technology she developed at SFU. … More Technology tracks ‘bee talk’ to help improve honey bee health.
Worker and queen honeybees exposed to field realistic levels of neonicotinoids die sooner, reducing the health of the entire colony, a new study led by York University biologists has found. The researchers were also surprised to find that the neonicotinoid contaminated pollen collected by the honeybees came not from crops grown from neonicotinoid treated seeds, … More Exposure to neonic pesticides results in early death for honeybee workers and queens.
During the past 20 years, insecticides applied to U.S. agricultural landscapes have become significantly more toxic — over 120-fold in some mid-western states — to honey bees when ingested, according to a team of researchers, who identified rising neonicotinoid seed treatments in corn and soy as the primary driver of this change. The study is … More Insecticides are becoming more toxic to honey bees.
