Keeping you connected to the world of bees.
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Solitary bees that ingested the pesticide clothianidin when foraging from rapeseed flowers became slower. In addition, the strawberries pollinated by these bees were smaller.
A new study found harmful levels of pesticides in milkweed plants purchased from retail nurseries across the United States. Pesticides were found in all plants tested, raising alarms for monarch conservation efforts that rely on planting milkweed sourced from commercial nurseries. Fortunately, the limited residues on some plants indicated that it’s possible to grow milkweed in a…
The funds are designed, in part, to help farmers create habitat for pollinators like bees and butterflies, store more carbon in the soil, and make farms more resilient in the face of extreme weather.
Recovering America’s Wildlife Act would provide close to $1.4 billion a year for restoring wildlife populations across the country. At its core, RAWA addresses a big problem: More than a third of the nation’s plants and animals are threatened with extinction, from the monarch butterfly to the Florida panther, putting outdoor recreation and ecosystems that Americans depend on at risk.
When it comes to reproduction, one type of red algae gets by with a little help from its friends: small sea crustaceans that transport sex cells between male and female algae, like pollen-laden bees buzzing between flowers. Both the red algae and crustaceans belong to far more ancient groups than land plants do, raising the possibility that a form of pollination first evolved in the ocean,…
A dramatic decline in the bee population at fruit farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania has scientists wondering whether it is a natural phenomenon or a warning about a future threat to the world's food supply. The study occurred over an eight-year period, too short a time for scientists to sound the alarm just yet. They said longer-term studies would need to be conducted to determine whether the…
Minute remnants preserved among the dried leaves might help scientists track pests and monitor population declines.
Researchers expected that, as had been previously shown with a variety of organisms, bumble bees who were socially isolated would exhibit more aggressive behavior and interact less with their social partner. The researchers were surprised to find that the isolated bees blossomed into social butterflies, exhibiting an increase in affiliative, or “friendly,” behavior.
Imagine traveling vast distances through a barren wilderness without access to food or water. That’s the challenging reality facing many flying insects in the U.K. Buglife has identified 150,000 hectares (580 square miles) of land across the U.K. that it wants to restore to wildflower meadows. The hope is that these meadows can be connected to form a nationwide insect “commuter” network, called…
A species of bumble bee thought to have disappeared from Wales has been recorded in Carmarthenshire for the first time since 1973. "We found nine queens. It's really incredible to find several on farm tracks and among upland pasture, areas where you just don't find rare bees normally. It says a lot about the farmers here, farming low intensity, low stocking density which allows wildflowers to…
