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Planting a garden for winter-active insects is a wonderful way to support local biodiversity. Your garden will thrive with the free pollination and pest control services the insects provide.
Red mason bee just hatched out of its cocoon.
Hazet/Wikimedia Commons
First ever feeding experiments reveal that solitary bees need to carb-load – and can be picky when it comes to dieting.
A hornfaced bee on a catkin.
Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH/Shutterstock
A diverse pollinator community is a reliable one.
A female squash bee.
Charles Melton/Alamy Stock Photo
EU-banned pesticides could not only threaten wild bees where they eat, but where they sleep too.
A floral scent can be enjoyable for a person, but it has an important job for the flower.
Richard L. Harkess
Not all flowers smell good, to people at least, but their scents are a way to attract pollinators.
James Dorey
The last time a specimen was collected was in 1923.
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While you may have seen a lot of bees around lately, there’s no reason to be afraid. Some don’t sting, and others might actually be flies.
Sleeping on the job?
Maciej Olszewski/Shutterstock
Chemicals banned in the EU were recently granted an exemption for limited use in the UK.
Worker bees with capped brood (brown), open brood (white larva), all sorts of coloured pollen and shiny fresh nectar.
Cooper Schouten
A single colony of bees can have 60,000 bees in it. Together, they can visit up to 50 million flowers each day to collect pollen and nectar. They’re not called ‘busy bees’ for nothing!
The complex interactions that maintain group health inside a bee hive offer lessons for humanity during pandemics.
Rachael Bonoan
Life in a honey bee hive is all about cooperating for the collective good.
A swarm of giant Asian honey bees.
Rickythai/Shutterstock
Honey bees in the most polluted parts of an Indian city were more likely to die sooner and showed clear signs of poor health.
Frank Wagner/Shutterstock
July 15, 2020
Rinke Vinkenoog , Northumbria University, Newcastle ; Katherine Baldock , Northumbria University, Newcastle ; Mark Goddard , Northumbria University, Newcastle , and Matthew Pound , Northumbria University, Newcastle
Urban green spaces can be a rich habitat for diverse pollinators, if they’re managed properly.
Two Asian giant hornets pass food to each other by regurgitating it.
(LiChengShih/flickr)
Asian giant hornets have received plenty of media attention recently. The only tangible threat they pose is to honey bees, which has nothing to do with the hornets — and everything to do with us.
Scarlett Howard
Past research has shown honeybees can add, subtract and even understand ‘zero’. But according to new findings, they can’t tell four flowers from five in natural settings.
City gardeners are dependant on wild insects to make their gardens thrive.
(Shutterstock)
Victory gardens were popular during wartime, and have made a comeback during the current pandemic.
Asian giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia japonica ) drinking sap from tree bark in Japan.
Alpsdake/Wikipedia
Are ‘murder hornets’ from Asia invading North America? A Japanese entomologist who’s been stung by one and lived to tell the tale explains what’s true about these predatory insects.
Northern amber bumble bee queen (Bombus borealis ) on a dandelion flower.
Sarah A. Johnson
One bee may lay thousands of offspring in late spring. Give her room to build a nest and manage her reproductive duties.
Wax….
Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
Three foods and some cool stuff you should know about them.
Agave honey bee log hive honey comb harvest.
Neil Rusch/no reuse without permission
Wild bees provide many lessons. Watching and learning from them may help keep honeybees safe and thriving.
The teddybear bee is a native Australian species.
James Dorey
In NSW, honeybees are listed as a key threatening process to biodiversity.