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 […]
BSAVA Satellite Meeting Summary: The BBVA’s first Satellite day was held on Wednesday 3rd April and featured six presentations from leading lights about the potential of using Manuka honey in clinical cases, the current status of Nosema in bee as well as the mapping honey bee disease and genetic diversity in the UK, as […]
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 […]
Northern brown argus in Swedish landscape. Credit: Karl-Olof Bergman For pollinating butterflies, it is more important to be close to forests than to agricultural fields, according to a study of 32,000 butterflies by researchers at Linköping University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala. The results provide important knowledge about how to […]
Trained to pick the lowest number out of a series of options, a honeybee chooses a blank image, revealing an understanding of the concept of zero. Scientists have discovered honeybees can understand the concept of zero, putting them in an elite club of clever animals that can grasp the abstract mathematical notion of nothing. By […]
Africanized honeybees, commonly known as “killer bees,” are much more aggressive than their European counterparts. Now researchers have examined neuropeptide changes that take place in Africanized honeybees’ brains during aggressive behavior. The researchers, who report their results in the Journal of Proteome Research, also showed they could turn gentle bees into angry ones by injecting them […]