Picture: Lilla Frerichs Bumblebees acquire a taste for pesticide-laced food as they become more exposed to it, a behaviour showing possible symptoms of addiction. This study of bumblebee behaviour indicates that the risk of pesticide-contaminated food entering bee colonies may be higher than previously thought, which can have impacts on colony reproductive success. In research published today […]
PhD student Melissa Mobley and Robert Gegear, assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), examine bumblebees that have been fed small doses of a neonicotinoid pesticide as part of a study of the effects of the compounds on the long-term stability and survival of bee populations. Credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute Read […]
Bumble Bee Colony Scientists are urging for improved regulation on pesticides after finding that they affect genes in bumblebees, according to research led by Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with Imperial College London. For the first time, researchers applied a biomedically inspired approach to examine changes in the 12,000 genes that make up […]
Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered bee venom can kill the HIV virus without harming the body. Bees could hold the key to preventing HIV transmission. Researchers have discovered that bee venom kills the virus while leaving body cells unharmed, which could lead to an anti-HIV vaginal gel […]
France will take a radical step towards protecting its dwindling bee population on Saturday by becoming the first country in Europe to ban all five pesticides researchers believe are killing off the insects. The move to ban the five so-called neonicotinoids has been hailed by beekeepers and environmentalists, but cereal and sugar beet farmers warn it could leave […]
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 on the Indonesian islands of the North Moluccas. Click on the image […]
In this electron micrograph, a parasitic mite, Varroa destructor, is wedged between the abdominal plates of a honey bee’s exoskeleton. Credit: UMD/USDA/PNAS Honey bee colonies around the world are at risk from a variety of threats, including pesticides, diseases, poor nutrition and habitat loss. Recent research suggests that one threat stands well above the others: a […]
The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. […]
A Michigan State University study is the first to show an association between unusually high pesticide exposure and poor sense of smell among aging farmers. The research examined more than 11,200 farmers over a 20-year period. At the start of the study, about 16 percent of participants reported having experienced a high pesticide exposure event, […]
A Varroa mite on a honey bee pupa. Credit: Gilles San Martin(Phys.org)—A fungus normally used to control insect pests may help honey bees protect themselves from a destructive mite by both infecting the mites and preventing suppression of the bee immune system, says a team of bee researchers at the University of Guelph. The Varroa mite is […]